How will 2008 be remembered? What enduring memories will be etched in the annals of history?

Between the failing economy, the Beijing Olympics, and the rise of President-elect Obama during the longest political campaign in recent memory, translators had many opportunities to apply their skills of cross-cultural communication around the world. Most of the time, the work was flawless, but when it wasn’t, the results ranged from hilarious to potentially treasonous, and even deadly.

Will the citizens of Little Britain have fond memories of visiting Racist Park during the Olympics? Perhaps the Russian government will finally balance the budget for the State Bowels Fund when members of the Max Planck Intistitue complete their visits to Chinese Brothels? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, here are ALTA’s top 10 translation goofs of 2008:

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There are many sporting events that bring cultures together: the Olympics, the World Cup, baseball, basketball, tennis and cycling to name a few. In each of these, the language of the sport’s originating country is spread to the other countries where the sport is adopted.

Baseball, for instance, was born in the good old US of A, and is hugely popular in Latin America and Japan. The words of baseball: strikes, outs, homeruns, short-stops, and double-plays, have been adopted in several other languages across the globe.

In an article about the internationalization of Japanese sports, cycling expert, Nagako Furusawa, refers to the traditional Japanese martial art, Judo, and its international popularity. Judo, along with Sumo wrestling, has established its status world-wide and references to it can now be found in any dictionary, along with being recognized by MS Word’s spell check. The next Japanese phenonemon that is on the verge of gaining world-wide popularity, and influencing other lexicons, if Furusawa is right, will be Keirin Racing.

Since the 2000 Olympic Games, Japanese Keirin racing and its culture have begun to dash across the globe, and the language of Keirin is already showing signs of being adopted in other countries. The word Keirin is derived from a Chinese compound meaning ‘compete wheel’. Here are the characters:

– Compete Wheel, which looks a lot like the following:

– Keiba for ‘compete horse’ or ‘horse racing’ and:

– Keitei for ‘compete boat’ or ‘boat racing’.

Keirin, however, refers to fiercely competitive track cycling. In Japan, you are more likely to see the name written in either the hiragana script or the katakana script:

– Hiragana for Keirin

– Katakana for Keirin

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