There are more than 7000 Languages in the world, only half of them have written systems. Linguists have categorized these languages into 142 different families. Nevertheless, translation doesn’t require the existence of a written system as we find in the instant translation, instant interpretation or verbal translation services. However, translation agencies encounter some difficulties finding a professional translator/interpreter for the following most hard languages:

 

1. Arabic: Most linguists believe that Arabic emerged in the 1 century CE. 467 million speakers most of them are located in the Arabic peninsula and North Africa. It has thirty varieties including the modern Arabic. The reason why it is a challenging language is the complexity of the grammar, its written from right to left and it has less vowels than any other language.

 

2. Mandarin: The most spoken language in the world with more than 920 million speakers. It was adopted as the official language of China in 1930, however, its root goes back to the 10th century AD. It is considered hard due to the complex writing system, its pronunciation and that it needs an extensive practice of the listening skill.

 

3. Japanese: The earliest known examples of Japanese writing, dating back to the 5th and 6th Centuries A.D. Currently, it is Spoken by 128 million people. It has three different alphabets with thousands of symbols. What makes it hard is the complex written system, the formal use of sentences varies according to the addressee and the large number of particles.

 

4. Vietnamese: The first script of Vietnamese date back to the 10th century AD, however, some linguists confirm that it has emerged in the 7th century AD. Nowadays, there are about 90 million speakers of this language. The hard part of Vietnamese is difficult pronunciation, the unusual grammar and the huge number of words that has the same way writing, but different meaning.

 

5. Icelandic: The oldest text known for this language was written around 1100 AD and it has around 400,000 speakers. The hardest thing about this language is the extremely long words, irregular grammar and pronunciation.

 

As we can see, most of the difficult languages are those used by the nations of east Asia due to the accumulated heritage of the civilizations flourished in this part of the world. In this regard, IAtranslate is proud of having some of the natives of all of these languages as an essential part of its professional translation team.

Translation can be dangerous in some situations!!  You probably don’t agree with that but it is fine because you’ve never faced a situation like that. Ok! Try to translate the Spanish word “Zorra” into English which is “Fox”, but you have to be careful if the text you are translating is about a woman. Do you know why? Because what’s a compliment in English can be an insult in Spanish. Yes, an insult because “A fox” when describing a woman in English is a compliment, however, in Spanish this word has another connotation which means a wicked woman.

Here are 15 hidden insults only experienced translators can avoid:

1. Une vache espagnole (French)
Literally: A Spanish cow.
Means: Someone who speaks French with a poor accent.
2. Se te fueron las cabras al monte (Mexican Spanish)
Literally: Your goats have gone to the mountain.
Means: you’ve gone crazy.
3. anasının gözü (Turkish)
Literally: their mother’s eyes.
Means: the person is cunning.
4. Я тебе покажу где раки зимуют (Russian)
Literally: I’ll show you where crayfish hibernate.
Means: I’ll teach you a lesson.
5. Vollkoffer (German)
Literally: full suitcase.
Means: stupid.
6. Tog (Danish)
Literally: Train.
Means: Idiot.
7. 豆腐の角に頭をぶつけて死ね (Japanese)
Literally: Go hit your head on a corner of tofu and die.
Means: complete idiots.
8. Twmffat (Welsh)
Literally: funnel.
Means: idiot.
9. Gey kakken oifen yam (Yiddish)
Literally: Go take a poop in the sea.
Means: Go to hell.
10. Estás mandando fruta (Argentine Spanish)
Literally: You’re sending fruit.
Means: You’re talking nonsense.
11. Casse-toi (French)
Literally: Go break yourself.
Means: Get lost.
12. Nicht alle Tassen im Schrank haben (German)
Literally: To not have all the cups in the cupboard.
Means: To be a bit of an idiot.
13. Gey strashe di gen (Yiddish)
Literally: Go threaten geese.
Means: You don’t scare me.
14. A Mongol (French-Canadian)
Literally: a native or inhabitant of Mongolia.
Means: Someone who is intellectually, genetically, and fundamentally retarded.
15. Anjing (Indonesian)
Literally: Dog.
Means: scum.

Believe it or not! Some of these horrible mistakes in translation accrued on TV. Therefore, translation requires more knowledge and experience. It is never a normal job any bilingual person can do.

Although it is supported with advanced tools and apps helping it to function properly; however, translation is a task that requires experience and verbal skills in order to deliver the meaning and ideas correctly. Here are three instances caused disastrous results and we can see its effects until now:

1. One word caused 220,000 persons to lose their lives:

In May 1945, Germany agreed to unconditional surrender to the allied forces ending 4 years of world war II. Shortly after this date, the allied leaders held a conference in Potsdam city near Berlin demanding Japan to follow Germany path. The British prime minister Churchill, the Soviet leader Stalin, USA president Truman along with the Chinese commander Chiang Kai-Shek asserted .3 any negative response to that demand will result in "prompt and utter destruction”. The Japanese government discussed the terms of the surrender in the Potsdam Declaration without reaching a final decision and Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki told the reporters in Tokyo this using the Japanese word, “mokusatsu” which means no comment or silence. However, there are other meanings for this word which are “ignore" or "treat with silent contempt”.

The translators working at the international news agencies choses the negative meaning which fits that the statement of the allies is not worthy of comment. The US government was angered by this reply and issued the order to drop a nuclear bomb over thousands of innocents who are not responsible for the mistake done by the translators and inability to deliver the right idea.

2. Incorrect translation costs 71 Million USD$:

Thinking that it is only a headache due to inhaling some gasoline in one of his friend’s car, but minutes later he was unable to stand and he was transferred to South Florida hospital. We are talking about USA baseball player Willie Ramirez. His friend and family speak only Spanish. The doctors in the emergency room replied on one the employees who know Spanish, but he was not a translator and he delivered a wrong idea that Willie had food poisoning because he injected something and the doctors understood it was an overdose of drugs and they began the treatment accordingly because he had similar symptoms to those who suffer from drug overdose. It only needed a medical translator for Willie not losing his future sport and normal life. when he recovered form comatose state two days later, he was quadriplegic. A lawsuit was filed and resulted in 71 million dollars to be paid by the hospital as a compensation for Willie, but this amount will not bring back his old life.

3. Moses still depicted as having horns till now:

A simple interpretation mistake by Saint Jerome, the patron saint of translators, while translating Exodus chapter 34 from Hebrew Scriptures into Latin. He translated the text describing the event when Moses descended from Mount Sinai, he had “keren” which means rays of the skin of his face and the word keren or qaran was translated by Saint Jerome as horns. When the catholic church published the formal Latin version, it adopted the translation of Saint Jerome of describing Moses and from that moment on, all the artists and sculptors make the head of Moses with horns. The best example of this is the work of the artist Michelanglo located in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome.

As the aforementioned examples, we conclude that mistranslation can lead to catastrophic results. Translation doesn’t necessarily mean that you can speak two or more languages. It is a special skill that needs more efforts and great understanding of both languages, not to forget the experience of the translator.

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