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tranfree issue 17 - 1st August 2000
Commercial TranslationBy Irina Budzivula I would like to share some amusing observations I made watching commercials on Russian and Ukrainian TV channels. The mechanical transfer of Western commercials into a different language environment often results in a "brick dropped onto the heads of potential consumers". Here are a few examples. The "Wash and Go" shampoo commercial may work alright for native speakers of English, but for the Russian (Ukrainian) ear, the word "wash" sounds like Russian word "vosh" that means louse -- the worst possible association that the commercial of a hair-care product may create in the minds of the potential buyers! Cosmetic company "Avon" is operating through a network of distributors who call themselves consultants. I do not know what "Avon" sales figures for Russia are, but I bet they would be much higher if the company invested in language training of its consultants so that they should be no longer tempted to treat the word "Avon" as a Russian word and pronounce it as "a:von". "Von" in Russian means "get lost" or "get out of here". Even though unintentional, a "get lost" message from a salesperson is not conducive to good sales. What's worse, it makes you suspicious as to how competent their consultants are to advise you on the cosmetic products that are labelled in English. Another example of an advertising lapse is the commercial for "Blue water" mineral water. "Blue water" sounds like Ukrainian word "bluvota "or "vomit". Again this is the last thing that a consumer of a beverage should make a connection with. The Gillette commercial in Ukrainian is the most harmless and just strikes one as being funny. "Zshilet" in Ukrainian is a... So subconsciously that is what a Ukrainian speaker is expecting to see a "zshilet" or a "waistcoat". Only the close-up of a shaving male leaves no doubt as to what is being advertised here. It's not all that bad though. The producers of "More" cigarettes have hit the jackpot with this name - as far as Russia and Ukraine are concerned. And if I go further with the lottery analogy, I would say they simply bought the lottery ticket (they gave the name to the product) without bothering to fill it out (there was no advertising in Ukraine at least none I am aware of). With few exceptions almost all the letters are read in Russian and Ukrainian words, so Russian/Ukrainian smokers do not ask for English "More" (mo: ), but for Ukrainian "More" (all the four letters are pronounced), meaning "sea". And unless it is this understandable name or rather an easy connection the local smokers make with the Ukrainian "more" -"sea" that is contributing to the popularity of this brand, what is it then? Just luck, pure and simple? The kind of luck you need to hit the jackpot? It's interesting to note that the "Blue water" commercial very soon disappeared from the TV screens; Gillette is now very distinctly pronounced as "dzshilet", the initial D is probably aimed at distinguishing English Gillette from Ukrainian "zshilet", while the "Wash and Go" commercial is still running with "Wash" still sounding like "vosh"-"louse". I have very nice hair. Is it because I have always been distrustful of the "VOSH" shampoos and preferred the vitamins in Pantene Pro-V? "Avon" claims to have good shampoos too and I might be talked into buying one, provided next time I am approached by their consultant he gets the name of the company right. Irina Budzivula, translator Russian & Ukrainian Thank you for some amusing observations Irina. The moral of the story? When translating advertising or publication texts you have to be VERY VERY CAREFUL. You should also insist that the client has everything checked out by their local representatives in-country. In many cases they will not have local representatives. Does this mean you should accept all liability? No. Absolutely not. You should disclaim it with every ounce of your strength! In some cases we are persuaded into doing jobs we don't really want (see tranfree 13 for an article about this) and don't feel qualified to do well enough. We always issue what we call a "health warning" when submitting the job. A typical health warning might look something like this...
Best of all would be to avoid the job in the first place. This is not always possible, since sometimes even your best clients under-estimate the job's difficulty level. Some clients even mislead you accidentally (or deliberately - perish the thought!) into thinking that "it's just a couple of pages - shouldn't take long!" The trouble is, that it's quite hard once you've verbally accepted the job to then phone back and turn it down - particularly with a good client (particularly if they email it to you on Friday afternoon and it's due for Monday morning and you don't get it until they've gone home and you've got no home contact number for them). The answer is to do it as well as you can and issue a health warning. Then you can sleep more easily and the responsibility falls to the client to make sure that it is suitable. But I'm ABSOLUTELY NOT suggesting that you make a habit of disclaiming responsibility for your work. Only use this technique when you're forced to do a job you wouldn't normally take! If you try to disclaim all responsibility for all of your work, clients will assume you are doing it because you don't trust your own quality. In most circumstances you will be able to reject the jobs which you don't feel qualified to do. You should reject them and not be greedy, or you may live to regret it!
Alex Eames is the founder of translatortips.com,
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...waistcoat.