Which company failed with translation services?

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Tesla Motors, Inc is an automotive production company who are famous for being the biggest car manufactures that produce solely fully electronic road-worthy cars. The company was fittingly named after the Serbian-American engineer Nikola Tesla whose ideas are now seen ahead of his time as he advocated the likes of wireless technology and electrical use. The now owner and CEO of the electric car manufacturers is South African born, Canadian-American business mogul and innovator, the one and only Elon Musk who had previous successes most notably with X.com (PayPal) and SpaceX, which aims to find a sustainable habitat for humans outside of Earth. Since the company’s inception in 2003 it has seen its fair shares of ups and downs over the years from being heralded as the saviour of the ozone layer as well as controversies ranging from the reliability of the electric cars batteries especially in cold weather to their website being compromised. But who knew that a translation error or rather the lack of accurate translation services would affect them?

This comes after the news that on 2nd August a 32 year old man from Beijing named Luo Zhen who had recently purchased a Model S had a minor accident with a parked car because he had been told and shown by the sales manager who sold him the car that the Model S was a self-driving car and that he could drive with no hands. Lou took his eyes off the road and hands off the wheel which resulted in the crash. Lou criticised the sales tactic stating that “They did not clarify the risks” and “It can easily mislead people to overuse the function.” The accident resulted in no injuries with only a scratch to the Model S. But Tesla has reacted quickly though with a fast translation alteration.

The original Mandarin translation had read the car was had a ‘self-driving system’ which has now been changed to a ‘driver-assistance system’ to clear up the confusion. Gary Tao, Tesla’s Beijing spokesman aimed a statement on their website towards this incident to clear it all up. Tao explained “We hope to clarify that it is a driving-assisting function and hope people can use it in a correct way,” he also said he did not know about Lou’s test drive. All in all, this incident should not disrupt Tesla’s innovation in which many see them as the future of automobiles.

Whether it’s bad localisation services or just a simple error what are your thoughts on this miscommunication?

Are Emoji’s replacing languages?

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How emoji’s are transforming the way we communicate.

In this day in age many of us communicate with one another via technology and the most common being the smartphone. The smartphone allows us to create spreadsheets, record videos and even perform language translation whether that is French translation or Spanish translation. Virtually all adults today own or have access to a smartphone at any given time. Our smartphones have somewhat become like our best friend who carries out our every thought out action in a virtual sense (apart from when your phone crashes). People would risk breaking their hand or leg to save their precious iPhone in a tumble. Our smartphones are used as alarms to wake us up in the morning and sometime put us to bed via listening to soothing music on apps such as YouTube and Soundcloud. Our smartphones virtually do anything we tell or ask them to and even speak back to us via extensions such as Ok Google or Siri.

With new smartphones being released every 6 months or so, there seems to be an increasing wave of different communication tools which have and are making big impacts on how we communicate whether that is the development of language translation apps or speech assisted messaging the latest wave of virtual communication is via emoji’s (emoticons). For those of you who do not know what emoji’s are which the majority of you will, they are the little images you find on your smartphone that help you to describe your mood in the form of an image. If you own an iPhone or Android phone you will notice hundreds of emoji’s to choose from ranging from facia expressions whether happy or sad to birthday balloons and cake. 

Emoji’s are so big right now that even todays celebrities have gone to the extent of cashing in on the craze by creating their own emoji’s. Take Kim Kardashian for example who recently “broke the apple app store” with the release of her ‘Kimoji’ emoji’s in late 2015 which she most likely made a few million $ from and most recently the comedian Kevin hart announced he is to release his own emoji’s on the app store stating “My Emoji App will be the Emoji App of all Emoji Apps”.

Facial expression and body language can overcome any language barriers and that is exactly what emojis have done. Nowadays when you text you almost feel obliged to use some type of emoji to describe how you feel and this has led to some campaigners proposing emojis that reflect women in more professional roles which in the current ‘emoji world’ is dominated by men. The Google employees who backed this stated that “We believe this will empower young women (the heaviest emoji users), and better reflect the pivotal roles women play in the world.“

With the emoji craze now being just a normal everyday thing to use, will the need for translation services be gone. Well probably not but they sure will continue to play a big part on how we communicate.

Here’s an emoji filled song that you may recognise. Comment below if you do.

Has this company changed translation services forever?

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The language and translation industry is big business, one that is worth an estimated $33billion worldwide. The need for humans to communicate over various different languages has never been greater thanks to the globalisation of the world, thus professional translation services are highly sought after.

One of the main driving factors of this massive need for global communication is really the financial translation of profit for both large and small companies in global markets. Like any industry, it pays to keep ahead of the pack and with this high need for language communications coupled with the advances in technology has enabled some professional translation agencies and other major corporations to produce products such as ‘real-time’ translation devices and app based translations that could help people who don’t necessarily have a grasp on a particular language in a foreign land.

At this early stage these advancements are capable of helping people just about get through everyday problems but in the professional world only human translations will do, the retail industry is still going to seek specialised retail translation services for example.

With all this competition for real time translation products and apps, one company has broken the mould recently with their ground breaking technology. Could it be a new way that will change language translations for kids such as German translation services babies? An alien translation app? Well it’s sort of along those lines, well maybe not as Temptations cat treats along with ad agency adam&eveDDB have come out with a cat to human translation device called ‘Catterbox’ that cat lovers all around the world will hopefully soon be able to get their claws on. (Bad joke I know)

Cat lovers rejoice as now you will be able to tell what your cat really wants instead of you asking “what’s wrong?” and expecting an answer like the cat is going to all of a sudden start speaking your language. Rather than getting a blank look from your cat followed by another “Meow” the Temptation Catterbox aims to translate your cats’ cries into human language thanks to research carried out looking into an adult cat’s communication with humans.

The 3-D printed prototype has been released in the USA as well as New Zealand. The device itself is a rubber collar and inside contains a microphone and a speaker whilst it also includes Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. Although it will not be completely accurate, it would be interesting to see what your cat actually wants as they are never happy unless they are sleeping or eating which is probably all they will say.

You won’t believe what this famous Disney line’s English translation is

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Ah, good old Disney, when most people think about their childhood they are bound to have some sort of memory watching a film produced by The Walt Disney Company. The company that was founded by Walt Disney and his brother Roy O. Disney in 1923 as the ‘Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio’ has become one of the most instantly recognisable brands in the world boasting films, TV shows, TV channels, merchandise, theme parks and much more. All of these retail operations have led to a phenomenal financial translation for Disney over the years.

With the help of translation services Disney are able to have an impact on generations or young children around the world. Whether you are young or old you will know at least a few of the Disney films, characters and songs to go with the films.

Whether you grew up watching the first feature film released by Disney in 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney’s main character Micky Mouse who made his first appearance in ‘Fantasia’ (1940), or other iconic characters both new and old such as Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Cinderella, Mulan, Minnie Mouse, Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, Aladdin, the list just goes on and on. All of the movies that have starred these Disney characters have been viewed and translated across the globe from French, Italian, Mandarin, Spanish, Hebrew and even a Romanian translation!

So it is good news for the generation of 20 and 30 somethings that one of the movies of ‘their time’ has finally had a translation, albeit not a very fast translation as it comes a whole 22 years after its initial release. The film in question is none other than the timeless classic The Lion King which takes place in a kingdom of lions in Africa, details the story a lion named Simba who is the son of the king Mufasa who is murdered by his brother to succeed him as king, basically a lion version of Hamlet. The story features many elements amongst others are a love story, coming of age, betrayal, and a song from Elton John.

However one of the most popular takeaways of the film is the start of the song ‘The Circle of Life’. Most of us don’t even know or thought about what the words are but the direct English translation has now been revealed. Rather than most of our renditions of the start which resemble a shouting rambles of a madman, the words are actually of the Zulu language “Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba / Sithi uhm ingonyama” (you definitely tried to sing it whilst reading) and the translation of this familiar line is not what you would expect but after 22 years waiting we can finally reveal the translation to be *drum roll* “There comes a lion. Oh yes, it’s a lion.”

Pretty underwhelming and absolutely sounds better in Zulu but those who were having sleepless nights trying to figure out what it meant can now rest easy at night.

Image: Pedro Plassen Lopes