I have always enjoyed observing how languages borrow from each other. Languages are ever changing tools that reflect our multicultural societies, and that, to me, is a good thing.
Sometimes though, these adopted words get altered in the process: the day I realised, as a teenager, that my fellow French people and I were using the conjugated verb “parking” as a noun for a car park, I felt a little silly. I felt almost embarrassed, actually, that we had borrowed this word only to misuse it. I hear you, it’s only a small error, and it gets the point across regardless, but I can’t help feeling a little rude when I use it…
However, I felt the balance was restored when, while on a shopping trip, I spotted this little marketing gem:
You might not be able to tell from the picture, but this is a toiletry bag. See what they did ? Following the footsteps of Pret-a-Manger (who ditched the accents alltogether by the way, but that’s another issue…), this is a beautiful literal translation of “ready to pack” to a more, how do you say, glamorous French version. Except it isn’t. Paquet is a noun, which means “Package” or “Parcel”. So this to me reads as “Ready to package”. It’s not so oh la la anymore.
A lot of Marketing campaigns use slogans or titles translated to French, Italian or Spanish amongst others to give their products a more continental feel. But it sometimes seems as though the accuracy of these translations is not at all as important as the exoticism gained from a foreign name.
This marketing move does not take into consideration that millions of people out here actually speak the lingo, whether it’s a native or acquired language, and many others are learning it…wrong, thanks to this kind of faux pas. As a linguist, my main feeling is exasperation. And an exasperated customer is not a buying customer.
And this, ladies and gents, is why you should ALWAYS ask a translator to do the job, because it’s a job, and ditch google translate for good, especially when marketing a product. Don’t say you haven’t been warned…
Katell Sevellec 