Translation tends to sound easier than it is. People often think that it’s just a matter of replacing each word with the corresponding translated word, and then you’re done. Actually, it is much more complicated than that. Translation is A LOT more than just words. There can be multiple ways, sometimes dozens of ways saying the same thing in another language. Add to that, things like grammar, colloquialisms, and any other number of examples of linguistic nuance, and the potential for mistakes is huge.

The old saying “things got lost in translation”, was never truer than the infamous example of a complete translation fail when KFC launched into China in the 1980’s. Someone mistranslated their catchphrase “It’s finger-lickin’ good” as “eat your fingers off”. Obviously, the brand survived, but mainly because the mistranslation was relatively funny and was not rude or insulting to anyone.