Sport is a global phenomenon and therefore has ongoing translation and subtitling requirements. This usually works well. But not always.
One mistranslation was so spectacular that it even attracted the attention of the international media. When American Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin gave an interview to a reporter from Austrian TV after winning the giant slalom event in January 2023, she was refreshingly candid about how she found the race particularly challenging this time. She explained that “I’m kind of in an unfortunate time of my monthly cycle.” The local reporter earnestly translated this as: “I can’t even ride a bike, which is something I do every month.”
However, the embarrassment that will probably follow this man for the rest of his life is by no means an isolated occurrence. Professional sports, in particular, with their global reach and interviews that are often held in English are a constant source of translation errors and misunderstandings. Some are highly amusing – others have rather more unpleasant consequences. We’ve compiled a short “best-of” list.
Controversial national anthem lyrics at a major sporting event
London, Wembley Stadium, June 29, 2021: England and Germany are facing one another in one of the last sixteen matches of the European Football Championship. Germany ended up losing the game, but the trouble began long before that. Dutch TV channel NPO decided to display subtitles for the national anthem lyrics as they were played. However, while the German players and fans were singing the words “Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit” (Unity and Justice and Freedom), viewers in Germany were treated to the subtitles “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt” (Germany, Germany above all, above all else in the world), which is the banned part of the anthem. The fact that Holland had to endure these lyrics under very different circumstances made the error all the more embarrassing.
Wise guys are not feared opponents
The fact that sports stars, probably driven by passion, don’t always refer to one another in the most glowing terms is well-known. However, sometimes mistranslation can also play a part. In 2017, Chile’s soccer star Arturo Vidal caused a stir when he appeared to “talk trash” about Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo: He used words to the effect that this wise guy does not exist for him. What he actually said was: “El cuco no existe.” The world “cuco” can actually be translated as “clever” but in Chilean Spanish can also mean “feared opponent” or “nemesis.” The fact that Vidal simply wanted to say that Ronaldo and his Portuguese team were not opponents to be feared was only corrected after the supposed insult had been circulated by the world’s sports media.
Online translations have consequences: for a handful of eggs
February 2018: Marked the start of the Winter Olympics in South Korea. Norway had sent 109 athletes, all of whom had to be fed. Naturally, the Norwegians ordered plenty of food, including 1,500 eggs. However, they ended up taking delivery of 15,000 eggs. The UK newspaper The Guardian ultimately figured out why the Norwegians received ten times more eggs than they asked for: the Norwegian chefs used an online translation service, which was sadly not equipped to decode the different and clearly rather complex counting system used in the Korean language. One of the chefs subsequently admitted that the Norwegian Olympic Team was fed every variation of egg dish during the weeks that followed.
A fatal subtitling error
Li Haotong is a Chinese pro golfer who climbed to 32nd place in the world ranking. Since this sport is known to be extremely lucrative, he was asked after a tournament win during an interview conducted in English what he was going to do with his prize winnings. Since he speaks English with a strong Chinese accent, the interview was subtitled. The affable Li Haotong responded: “I may buy some gifts.” That he was planning to buy “some girls,” according to the automatic subtitling, was definitely not the plan.
Discriminatory sport translation
Manuel Neuer had an unpleasant experience. The goalkeeper who has played for Bayern Munich and the German national soccer team for many years is known for his committed and proactive stance against racism, homophobia, and misogyny – known and consistently problematic areas in the sport of football. Back in 2011, while he was still a goalkeeper at Bundesliga club Schalke, he was asked about the issue of homosexuality in football in an interview. The-then 24-year-old responded: “Players who are gay should go public about it. That would take a load off their minds. And the fans would also get over it quickly.” He then went on to describe how one of his fellow high-school students came out and was clearly misunderstood by a Peruvian journalist. The message that Neuer himself was gay spread across South American sports media, culminating in headlines such as “Gay goalkeeper begs colleagues to liberate themselves” or “Goalkeeper relieved after coming out.” These explicitly homophobic phrases alone demonstrate the importance not only of accurate translations but also of athletes like Manuel Neuer.
Translation errors: The body and soul problem from antiquity
The importance of knowing the context of translations is demonstrated by a quote that originally had nothing to do with sport. When the Roman poet Juvenal came up with his famous quote “mens sana in corpore sano,” he was poking fun at fellow citizens who begged the Gods for meaningless gifts – instead of much more important things such as mental and physical health. It is well known what the National Socialists and their collaborators, who were not only uneducated but also opposed to education, made of this: the interpretation that only a healthy body was capable of supporting a healthy mind is to this day probably the most common one. It is also one that would probably have rendered the sharp-tongued Juvenal speechless.
Translation software ruins transfer
The case of the Ecuadorian professional soccer player Bryan Cabezas shows just how quickly incorrect translations can have far-reaching consequences. In 2018, the left winger was due to be transferred on loan from his Italian club to the Argentinian club Independiente. All the contracts had been drawn up – however, they were translated by a software program. This program transcribed the player’s name as “Heads”, which was, strictly speaking, correct. However, it meant that the contract was not valid, and the transfer never took place.
An unconventional tiebreaker
Those who regularly play on a PC or game console will be familiar with the phenomenon. Even expensive Triple-A games are not immune to astonishing subtitling or dubbing errors. An oft-quoted example that is well documented with screenshots is the football simulation World Class Soccer from 1994: If a game is still undecided after 90 minutes, the message “Elfmeterscheissen” is displayed prominently in capital letters in the German version of the game. “Elfmeterschiessen” is the German word for “penalty shootout”. Unfortunately, if the letters “ie” are flipped around to become “ei,” the players will have to perform a “penalty sh#t”. So, definitely not a world-class translation.
The Gospel according to Lothar
A minor translation glitch also occurred at the administrative court of Kassel in Germany in 2018. Fortunately, it led to nothing more serious that general amusement. An asylum seeker was questioned about his conversion to Christianity. He was asked to explain the subject of the previous Sunday’s sermon. His answer was translated by the interpreter rather surprisingly with “Lothar Matthäus.” It took some further questioning to ascertain that the sermon was actually about Martin Luther and the Gospel of Matthew.
Not everything is a translation error
The phenomenon of mistranslations also has a downside: time and again, athletes who say something offensive have tried to shift the blame to mistranslations. This is exactly what legendary Brazilian Formula One driver and world champion Nelson Piquet tried to do. In 2022, he lashed out at the (dark-skinned) English superstar Lewis Hamilton, obviously insulting him. In an interview, he referred to him using the racist epithet “Neguinho” and then responded to the media outrage by claiming the term meant nothing more than “that guy” in Brazilian Portuguese. Journalists from the “Motorsport total” platform surveyed native speakers and came to the clear conclusion, “that actually everyone we spoke to felt that the word used was definitely derogatory.” Put simply: incorrect translations can explain a great deal but not everyone can hide behind them.
