This link has been bookmarked by 12 people . It was first bookmarked on 19 Jun 2008, by Grace Kat.
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20 Sep 14
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14 Nov 13
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01 Oct 13
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05 Jul 12
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Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Grave".
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Nothing sucks like an Electrolux
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26 Nov 10
Addie Guillory"Some Humorous Cross-Cultural
Advertising Gaffes!
When a passenger of foot heave in sight,
tootle the horn.
Trumpet him melodiously
at first, but if he still obstacles your
passage
tootle him with vigor."
-From a brochure at a Tokyo car rental firm
Many of you may have heard of these infamous errors made by multinational
corporations when translating brands or slogans abroad. Language, of course, is
only one of many cultural barriers you may have to bridge with your partner
organization. We hope this list will entertain you while giving important
insight on the potential pitfalls of cross culture communication and serving as
a reminder of the importance of a good sense of humor! American and Canadian
groups may need to explain to their international partners some of the finer
meanings of certain words used below.
v When Kentucky Fried Chicken entered the Chinese
market, to their horror they discovered that their slogan "finger lickin' good"
came out as "eat your fingers off"
v Chinese translation also proved difficult for
Coke, which took two tries to get it right. They first tried Ke-kou-ke-la
because when pronounced it sounded roughly like Coca-Cola. It wasn't until after
thousands of signs had been printed that they discovered that the phrase means
"bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the
dialect. Second time around things worked out much better. After researching
40,000 Chinese characters, Coke came up with "ko-kou-ko-le" which translates
roughly to the much more appropriate "happiness in the mouth".
v Things weren't much easier for Coke's
arch" -
03 Jul 08
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02 Jul 08
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