Bad Translations

If you've done much traveling abroad, you've likely run across bad translations. Want to read really bad translations - and funny ones, too? Check out Engrish.com. It's a Web site dedicated to capturing humorous mis-translations in Japanese products and advertising.

The Japanese educational system is one of the best in the world, and most Japanese study English for six to ten years. But English in Japan is used as a design element - to give a product a hip look and feel - often with little thought to the meaning of the word. 

But making a mistake in translation can sometimes be serious - or offensive.

And closer to home, we at METRO have noticed some bad translations on some of our signs on our buses and around our trains.

Some of them are minor - a missing accent mark or a misspelled word. For example, one of our sticker signs on the bus uses the word "cross" as in "Please do not cross in front of or behind the bus!"

The Spanish word should be "cruce" but it's spelled "cruze" instead.

Another sign is far more egregious. A sticker sign on our ticket vending machine on the rail platforms says: "Consumption of alcoholic beverages prohibited. Violation is a Class Misdemeanor & carries a fine up to $500."

The word "violation" is translated to "violacion" in Spanish. But "violacion" in Spanish means "rape."

Last Oct., we began funneling all outbound materials through our marketing and communications department as a quality-control measure. Nicole Adler, advertising account executive, has been given official status as METRO translator who oversees the work performed by the translation service with whom we contract. Adler is a native Spanish speaker from Mexico City.

Sandra Salazar, METRO Solutions communications supervisor and a native Spanish speaker from Puerto Rico, has been asked to oversee quality control of our translations. She has been officially certified as a simultaneous court translator by Cook County in Chicago.

"The overwhelming majority of people who speak another language in Houston speak Spanish," pointed out Salazar, adding that "Spanish is unofficially Houston's second language."

Del Balbin, METRO's marketing director, is fluent in three languages - English, Spanish and Portuguese. "We had been focused on outbound materials - brochures - fixing them as early as possible. Now we're concentrating on the signs around our system," said Balbin, who is a certified translator/interpreter for English and Spanish.  "The marketing department is now proactively translating many outgoing marketing materials (print, video, Web) into Spanish and where appropriate, into Chinese and/or Vietnamese."

Two new staff members - Rosio Torres, media specialist, and Carolina Suarez, copywriter - also have experience speaking and working in Spanish and English. Torres has done translations and has been the Spanish-speaking reporter/anchor/producer for Univision - both at the network and here at KXLN. Suarez has done translations for Ad Results Inc., Foley's and Macy's.

With all these rich resources on staff, we hope we can make sure any future translations will be accurate and capture both the right meaning, along with any nuances.