Most epic translation fails of 2014

Dec 17 2014

Maria Stambler

RBTH

In our day and age it’s getting increasingly difficult to get by without knowing a foreign language…what with all the globalization and movement of people. But if your knowledge of other tongues fails you, you know that you can always count on online translators…or so many people seem to think. Thanks to people like that, we can present a delightful little collection like this to you that certainly made us LOL, ROFL and LMFAO over the course of 2014. Enjoy and may 2015 bring us even more epic translation fails!

Food always seems to get an interesting twist when translated into English:

Отличный перевод: "сочень"> "with very" (adme.ru) pic.twitter.com/gUOPGM3e4t
— Яков Радченко (@YakovGR) September 12, 2014

Traditional Russian dish “With very” (if broken into two separate words «с очень» does mean “with very” but clearly not the case here)

Это Сочи, типичный Сочи!)
Фото опубликовано @katik_shevik фев 2, 2014 at 3:57 PST

This has to be one of our favorites! The word «testo» in Russian means dough – too bad whichever online translator was used failed this «test»! And, of course, «язык» is the word for tongue and language so we guess we can see how the poor thing got confused…sorta.

Caput color pic.twitter.com/E06Jv9rPTy
— Евгений Самсонов (@bitniks) February 5, 2014

Note: this is NOT how you say cauliflower in English…or in Russian for that matter.

Post by Бюро переводов GMC Translation Service.

When smoking isn't the most dreadful thing that can happen.

Hope Tereschenko. #Сочи2014 pic.twitter.com/DyaHXBGb3T
— Михаил Григорьев (@MiKaelRus) February 14, 2014

No «hope» for a correct translation! (The Russian name «Nadezhda» does translate into English as «hope» but we sincerely doubt that Ms. Tereshchenko would respond to it)

Русская баня. Что русскому хорошо, то иностранцу - крематорий pic.twitter.com/awOBJ9okZS
— Леди Кац (@lady_Katz) October 27, 2014

We can assure you that a traditional Russian banya has NOTHING to do with crematoriums!

IMAGINE THE CAR TO INSPECTION [x] facepalm.bmp “@alexmak: МГИМО финишд! pic.twitter.com/cySZ135BZ2”
— S.Lebedev (@drasgo) May 20, 2013

It's all up to your imagination, literally.

Street names and signs really got it bad this year:

В Сочи вместо улицы Голубые дали появилась Blue Dali Street http://t.co/cXXfFdVp7m #onlinekpru #новости pic.twitter.com/7FdKUoMIWo
— Комсомольская правда (@onlinekpru) December 16, 2013

And a very very special mention goes to the most honest translator known to mankind:

Source: Yaplakal.com

«I'm finding it very very difficult to put together a proper name for this dish out of the available English words and the online translator is giving me complete and utter nonsense. I even watched the video how this dish is prepared».

Most epic translation fails of 2014

Read more: Moscow through the Eye of Sauron>>>