Translating Mandarin Chinese is Big Business
Jiri Stejskal cannot forget a “Please Do Not Disturb” sign that once hung at the door of the hotel room he stayed in Beijing seven years ago. The back side of the sign read: “Please Disturb”. The words are correct, but it is just not proper English, not in the English language culture, Stejskal, vice-president [...]
Click here to continue readingWhat’s a Redneck German Sound Like?
Translators walk fine line so movies work globally Pixar Animation’s “Cars 2″ went out this summer in 44 different languages. And every country faced the same problem when it came to dubbing the aw-shucks ramblings of one of the movie’s lead characters — the country bumpkin tow truck Mater, voiced in the movie by Larry [...]
Click here to continue readingFirms Ignore the Foreign Language Internet at Their Peril
When Pepsi launched in China, so the story goes, the translation of the slogan, ‘Come alive with the Pepsi generation’, promised consumers something a little different. Could Pepsi really bring their ancestors back from the dead? The result was apparently a dip in sales. While this has never been properly substantiated, according to urban legend-busting [...]
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