Found in Translation

Transferring text from one language to another is a tricky thing. Meanings are lost. But sometimes found.

If a good translator did not need to have mastered the artistry of words then novels would be run through a refined edition of Google Translate and that would be that. But this is by no means the case and not only because of the ridiculousness that would ensue. A word might be a word but well strung together words have to power to inspire, evoke happiness, fear, hurt and any other feeling imaginable. A new feeling, not previously recognised, might even result. Badly constructed, sentences fall flat and dull, reading or sounding like footnotes on a tax return. So translators sure have their job cut out for them.

But as fond and in awe as I am of what translators do so well ,what I wanted to mention are examples of ridiculously bad translations that one sometimes comes across in the Icelandic media. Before I give examples I should note that errors in news translations usually make the article more interesting than the original version, certainly funnier.

 

What has prompted me to approach this subject is Justin Timberlake. Obviously. Last week the online edition of one of the Icelandic newspapers reported that Justin uses Microsoft Excel for everything regarding his personal and professional life. The article noted him as not getting through the day without entering everything into a spreadsheet and that the actor/singer would not want to live without Excel. As I work as an engineer I am no stranger to this particular computer program. I find it quite useful but would not consider suicide if it went off the market, unlike Justin. The day this was on the web he did however get a lot of respect at the office and it was mentioned more than once that he must be pretty smart for a singer/actor. His ranking amongst my engineer co-workers did however fall drastically when it came out that this whole article was a misunderstanding. The seed that inspired the fabulation turned out to be an English gossip headline where Justin’s girlfriend was quoted as saying: “Justin excels at everything!”

The Icelandic version of the headline: "Could not live without excel-spreadsheets".

Another example is when the Icelandic TV reported news from a vote in the English House of Commons. The Icelandic subtitles reported the votes as having fallen: 317 eyes and 300 noses. The ayes and nos had taken on a new meaning, leaving the Icelandic public amazed at how disproportionate the number of eyes were compared to the noses when it came to English parliament members. Didn’t someone, somewhere say that in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king? Not that I consider England to be the land of the blind. Far from it.

When discussing the Justin debacle a friend of mine reminded me of another translation news mix-up.  This one originated from the US where American scientists made a brilliant scientific advance, managing to create a living organism in a lab. In Iceland the translated article ended up telling us that foreign scientists had finally been able to create a living, breathing orgasm. It was hailed as one of the most important scientific breakthroughs in recent centuries. When reading this one must remember that the Icelandic word for orgasm (fullnæging) does not look like the Icelandic word for organism (lífvera), at all. And neither bears any resemblance to the English words so inference was not a given. The readers of this article were thus left scratching their heads in amazement at how far science has come.

When googling for other examples I found a sum-up of such errors, also inspired by the now very-famous-in-Iceland Justin Timberlake and the whole excel debacle. This was written by a reporter at Iceland Review (Jóhannes Benediktsson) and he mentioned the winner in my opinion. The translation bummer he remembered and I had not, was when the TV here began showing Law and Order – Criminal Intent. The name of the show in Icelandic: Lög og Regla - Glæpamaður í tjaldi.

Law and Order – Criminal in a Tent

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