At Raptor Translations Magazine, we sometimes get pieces of work that have been already translated, and not to a particularly high standard. Often, especially when the work is translated through an inexperienced translator, they are full of commonly mistranslated words.
So, what are the most common mistranslated words?
The most common reason why words are mistranslated are often because of what linguists call ‘false friends’. These are words that look or sound like an English word, yet have nothing to do with the English word they look or sound like.
Spanish- Embarazada/Embarassed
Embarazada is the Spanish word for pregnant. Whilst this is a mistake that we can understand, it is not any less funny when we know a male is either writing or saying that. We understand that the translator is trying to say the word ‘Desconcertado’, which is the Spanish word for embarrassed.
Obviously ‘Embarazada’ does look a lot like the English embarrassed, so I can understand why a newbie translator would make that mistake. Even as I am writing this, my spell-check wants to change ’embarazada’ into embarrassed. So, this could even been put down to technology’s overeagerness to help you spell!
These two are probably some of the most famous instances of not only false friends, but also mistranslated words.
French- Journée/Journey
French is supposed to be one of the easiest languages on the planet right? Yes, it is, but that doesn’t mean that there are some false friends in French. (Fun fact: the term false friends comes from the French ‘Faux Amis‘ meaning, literally ‘false friends’).
Journée is probably one of the most commonly mistranslated words in the whole French language. Journée is the French word, meaning ‘day’ (think about the word ‘jour‘ in ‘bonjour‘), whereas the English word ‘journey’ is translated as ‘le voyage‘.
This can often be quite frustrating for many experienced translators as this is one of the most commonly mistranslated words in the whole French language, and can be easily avoided with the use of a dictionary.
Portuguese- Livraria/Library
If you speak a Romance language, you’ve probably been expecting this. In most Romance languages, the word for library is some variation on the Latin ‘Bibliotheca’.
However, livraria is very similar to a library, not just in terms of etymology but also why they are. This is why they are considered to be ‘near false friends’. In Portuguese, a livraria is a book store, whereas a Library is a place to take books out for free.
This isn’t too much of a headache for experienced translators, when fixing mistranslated words, as you can often tell from context which one is which. However, there are certain situations where translating these mistranslated words can be extremely confusing, and very irritating.
German- Die Rente/Rent
German, OK, easy. Most of the non-French words in English are Germanic. So, clearly, ‘Die Rente‘ has to mean ‘rent’ in English, right? Wrong.
‘Die Rente‘ is the German word for a pension- as in, something you will get from the government (and/or your company) when you retire. This is not the word for rent- something that you pay to the person who owns the house you are living in, when the owner is not you.
This one is quite understandable, and equally as frustrating for translators. This is because in many (but not all) circumstances, the phrase ‘Die Rente‘ can be used in place for the German word for rent (Miete). This forces the translator to go over much of the document, or source material, and work out which one it should be from context.
Dutch- Eekhoorn/Acorn
When you look at these two, you probably assume that the one on the left is ‘Acorn’ in Dutch and the one on the right is ‘Acorn’ in English. However, seeing as how this list is entitled “11 most commonly mistranslated words” and not “11 most common cognates” or something to a similar effect, you can probably assume that these two are not similar.
However, there is one similarity between them. One get one, whilst the other is one. Confused? Allow me to explain further.
Eekhoorn is the Dutch word for squirrel (the animal that tends to collect acorns), whereas Acorns are well… Acorns. So an Eekhoorn in Dutch collects an Acorn in English.
Again, this is too much of a difficult task for translators to identify the mistranslated words. This is because they often don’t fit in each other’s place, eg. you wouldn’t say the squirrel was hanging from the tree, nor would you say that an acorn hibernates.
Swedish- Vrist/Wrist
Vrist or Wrist? They are both connected (both figuratively and literally) but are also some of the most commonly mistranslated words in he whole of the Swedish language. This is because they are false friends, but what I tend to call ‘near false friends’.
They are still false friends, but they linked. A ‘Vrist’ in Swedish is your hand, but it looks like the English word ‘Wrist’ (see why I said they were connected?)
However, in Swedish, a wrist is ‘handled’, which is a rather confusing mistranslated word. Neither of these ‘false friends’ line up. Whilst one looks like Wrist in one language, it means hand, and the one that looks like hand in the other language is wrist.
Italian- Domandare/to Demand
By now, you are probably expecting ‘Domandare‘ to mean something completely different. Perhaps it is the verb ‘to fish’ in English, or maybe the verb ‘to build’ or something equally as unrelated.
Yet, ‘Domandare‘ and ‘to demand’ are actually quite similar in many respects.
‘Domandare’ is the verb ‘to ask’ in English. So, if you were to say to your child “Io domando che tu vada a letto.”
You haven’t exactly demanded in a forceful way, that playtime is over and it’s time your kid finally went to bed. You merely asked politely.
Catalan- Atemptar/attempt
OK, I only added this in, because I am a Catalan translator, and I see this mistake too often (and it is quite funny once you realise what they are actually saying).
I can see, quite clearly, that the translator is trying to say the Catalan word ‘intent‘ or ‘intentar‘ depending on the context. Yet, they use the Catalan verb ‘atemptar‘, which is the verb ‘to commit a terrorist attack’.
Obviosuly, terrorist attacks are no laughing matter, no matter what country you live in.
However, it is quite funny when I get a piece that is clearly so out of context, it is almost too hard, not to laugh. Once, I got a piece of work that said “Vaig atemptar comprar una samarreta a Anglaterra, mentre feia servir el meu limitat anglès.” What the translator was trying to get across was that, the person in the sentence was attempting to buy a T-shirt in England whilst using broken English.
However, what the translator said was “I committed a terrorist attack [in order] to buy a T-shirt in England, whilst using my limited English.”
This, had me in fits of laughter for many days, as I don’t normally see anything remotely like that.
Basque- Bake/Bake
You probably haven’t heard much about Basque, it is generally considered to be Europe’s only language isolate and one of Europe’s forgotten languages.
However, there is still a great deal of translation work done, both into and out of Basque. By far the most mistranslated word in Basque is ‘Bake’, being confused with the English word ‘bake’.
However, these words have drastically different meanings. ‘Bake‘ in Basque means ‘pitch’ in English (as in like a football pitch, not a persuasive article in the business world).
This is probably one of the best examples of a false friend between language families. The two words look, sound and are spelled the exact same way, yet mean two completely different things. ‘Bake’ is one of the most commonly mistranslated words both into and out of Basque.
Russian- Angina/Ангина
“What even is an Angina in English?” I hear you saying. “How on earth can that be a mistranslated word or false friend, when I’ve never heard of this word in my entire life?!” (Or maybe you have, I don’t know).
An Angina is a serious chest infection, whilst I am not a doctor, I have linked to the NHS website explaining Anginas.
Ангина in Russian is the English word for tonsillitis, with the correct word being ‘Стенокардия‘
This is much like Turkish (the next one on our list). It is extremely infuriating for translators, as this pair of mistranslated words can often be used in both contexts. These mistranslated words often are the biggest headache for Russian translators the world over.
Turkish- Pasta/Pasta
Oh no. I can hear your cries for help already. “What could Pasta possibly be?” I can hear you asking. I’m sure though, that you’d much rather eat Pasta in Turkish than you would eat Pasta in English.
You see, Pasta in English, is a delicious dish that originates in Italy. On the other hand, Pasta in Turkish is the word for cake. So, I’m sure (most of) you would prefer to eat Pasta in Turkish than you would Pasta in English.
This is yet again, such a frustrating thing for translators. Because they are both food items, you could translate it wrong, and it still make sense in either Turkish or English. This is by far the most common headache all Turkish translators face when fixing mistranslated words and rooting out false friends.
Are you a translator? What are your most infuriating mistranslated words? Do you think I missed out any obvious mistranslated words that people tend to get wrong? Tell me in the comments!