3 Stories on Catastrophic Consequences of Wrong Translation

Translation Process

Disastrous Consequences of Wrong Translation

Mistranslation in Kuwaiti Contract

Story of Willie Ramirez

Story of Japanese Prime Minister

How to Avoid Mistranslation?

Translation Process

Translation is a process of transforming a written message from a language into another through linguists or translators. During the translation process, professionals understand a source text and convey the meaning to the target audience according to the linguistic rules of a target language. Translation doesn’t rely on converting a term from a language into another; however, it focuses on the core meaning of a source text.

There are five steps of the translation process as follows:

• Translation
• Editing
• Reviewing
• Proofreading
• Quality Assurance

Disastrous Consequences of Wrong Translation

Translation isn’t an easy task. It needs correct understanding not only for words, but also for the tone. If a translator doesn’t correctly convey the tone of a word, catastrophic consequences may still occur. Wrong translation may have significant consequences on business relations, deals, and reputation and may cause health and financial losses. Imagine a single word is wrongly translated in a court. A victim may lose his/her rights or may be unjustifiably convicted. In the below sections, we are going to narrate three stories which illustrate the risks of mistranslation.

Types of Legal Documents & Risk of Mistranslation

• Agreements and Contracts: These documents contain the terms and provisions which govern a business relationship. Any mistranslation may lead to misunderstanding, wrong implementation, disputes, loss of business relation, and financial losses.
• Patents: They are crucial for protecting the intellectual property rights. We live in a world driven by innovations which must be protected. The legal protection can be compromised, rights may be lost, financial damage can be incurred, and right may be infringed if any item of a patent is wrongly translated.
• Court Documents: Accurate and correct translation is essential for court documents such as evidence, testimonies, affidavits, rejoinders, memos, petitions, and judgments. Any mistranslation may waste rights and undermine justice. In addition, legal repercussions may occur.

 Mistranslation in Kuwaiti Contract

In 1987, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Public Works signed a contracting agreement in which there were specifications regarding the quantity of concrete poured as per the level of underground water. These specifications were wrongly translated. According to the wrongly-translated specifications, the Kuwaiti Ministry had to incur millions of dollars for the exaggerated calculations of concrete. After long decades of applying such specifications, the Ministry communicated with global consulting firms and discovered that the translated specifications are wrong while the applicable international specifications are totally different. Based on the correct international specifications, the Kuwaiti Ministry shall not incur such big amounts for the poured concrete. The Undersecretary for Structural Projects indicated that the wrong translation of such specifications resulted in exaggerated calculations of concrete. Accordingly, millions of dollars were uselessly incurred.

Consequently, a decision was made to correct the wrong translation. The Kuwaiti Government saved approximately KWD 7 million in the first two projects implemented according to the correct original specifications.

Story of Willie Ramirez

On January 22, 1980, a young healthy guy called Willie Ramirez was enjoying his time with his friend when he felt severe headache, but he ignored it because he thought that this is because of the smell of gasoline in his friend’s car. The headache became severer and he suddenly lost consciousness. Willie was taken to a hospital in South Florida in a coma. He became quadriplegic, not because of a disease, but because of a mistranslated word. Willie was admitted to the hospital with hemorrhage, but doctors didn’t realize so because of a word uttered by his mom and wrongly translated. His mother said that Willie might be “Intoxicado”. However, the doctors misinterpreted it into English as “Intoxicated”. Intoxicated isn’t the correct translation of intoxicado which means that a person ate a poisonous food while intoxicated means that a person took an overdose of alcohol or drugs.

Willie was left to bleed for two days due to hemorrhage. The mistranslation of a single word made doctors give him wrong medications. Had a neurologist been called earlier, Willie would have been correctly diagnosed and would have taken the correct treatment. A young strong man became paralyzed due to the mistranslation of a single word. Accordingly, his family filed a suit against the hospital, which was settled at compensation of USD 71 million.

Mistranslation of a single word results in the loss of health for the lifetime and big financial and reputation loss incurred by the hospital.

Story of Japanese Prime Minister

In 1945, the Allied Countries made a statement requesting Japan to surrender and said that any negative answer from Japan would lead to prompt destruction. During a press conference with the Japanese Prime Minister, the journalists asked him about the Japanese decision in reply to this Statement. He replied with only one word that is “Mokusatsu”. This word has several meanings including “Silence”. However, the media channels translated it as “No Comment”, “Ignore”, or “Not Worthy of Comment”. The Allied Countries considered this answer as a negative reply. Ten days later after this press conference, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and killed over 70,000 persons. Some people think that the Japanese Prime Minister intentionally used this word for political reasons while others believe that this word was mistranslated. If it had been correctly translated, the world would have avoided this disaster of Hiroshima.

How to Avoid Mistranslation?

There are four tips which help you avoid the mistranslation as summarized below:

• Professional Experienced Translators: You should hire a professional translator experienced in your field. If you want to translate a legal document, a legal translator is the one who can have deep understanding of legal terminology and structures. The same applies to a medical or financial document.
• Clear and Concise Documents: A source text must be clear and concise so that a translator can accurately translate it. You can also provide glossaries and references.
• No Machine Translation: We realize that the AI-empowered translation is overwhelming nowadays. However, you can’t be assured that you get correct translation. Human translators are definitely more accurate and reliable.
• Sufficient Time for Translation Process: It is better not to stress a translator within a tight timeframe. The longer period you give to a translator, the more accurate translation you get. When a translator has ample time, he/she can do research, review, edit, proofread, and ensure the quality and consistency of translation.

 

Conclusion

The disastrous consequences of mistranslation have significant impacts on business relations, deals, political communications, legal affairs, and health. It is crucial to understand the translation process is complicated and needs time and efforts. By reading the stories of mistranslation in this blog, you can understand that a single mistranslated word can lead to a disaster. The main step to get correct and accurate translation is to find a professional experienced translator.