Audio & Video Translation

You own Project Manager for an unbeatable voice over recording service

You will work with one of our experienced project managers who will walk you through each stage of the project delivery process. They will first review your source materials to make sure we have everything we need to offer a well-thought-out solution. Additionally, if your project calls for voicing, they will call upon their experience with our huge range of professional voice artists to guarantee that you find exactly the voice you need and at a fair price.

To make sure your media is produced on time and within your budget, they will organise studio time, monitor the production process, and pay close attention to the intricacies of your project throughout.

They will also walk you through each step of the process to make sure you understand it. Our industry has a propensity for utilising a ton of technical jargon, but your dedicated project manager will be on hand to cut through the complexities and make sure you only pay for what you need.

We have some fabulous reviews which bear testimony to our friendly and expert voice over agency and subtitling services.

Ten of the worst translation bloopers

Don’t mix up your Turkey’s
The prestigious school, Philips Exeter Academy opened a study abroad programme AND THE Director was keen to demonstrate popular American events. He chose Thanksgiving and asked his young assistant to ‘get a few turkeys.’ as turkeys are the traditional meal eaten on Thanksgiving.

The assistant thought the Director meant Turks and invited Turks over from the Turkish Embassy. The Turkish staff from the embassy arrived and the assistant went off to ask the director in what forms the Turks should be. The director, who thought she was talking about the turkeys said, ‘preferably plucked, it’s less fuss.’ The assistant then went off and repeated this to the Turkish embassy staff who were quite rightly enraged!

Finger Lickin’ good!
When Kentucky Fried Chicken opened up their restaurants in China, they had their famous slogan literally translated. The slogan says ‘finger lickin’ good’ which in English makes perfect sense – you always lick your fingers if you’ve eaten something delicious with your hands. Unfortunately, the translation in Chinese came out as meaning ‘Eat your fingers off’ which was just the type of image to put the Chinese public completely off Kentucky Fried Chicken.

A Knee operation that went wrong
A Berlin hospital made a mistake with knee implants. The surgeons were supposed to use a type that were designed for cemented use, but the packaging for implants was incorrectly translated. It said they had cement when in fact they didn’t. It led to around 47 patients having to go through a very painful procedure for a second time after the error was discovered.

Parker Pens
The UK pen manufacturer knew the problems ink pens could cause when they leaked so they created a slogan which said ‘ It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.’ But due to a translation error when they had the slogan translated into Spanish it read instead, ?won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.’ That caused some confusion with Spanish customers.

HSBC Bank
This translation mistake cost HSBC bank a great deal of money and also led them to change their tagline.

Originally in English their slogan read ‘assume nothing’ but in a promotional campaign for several foreign countries the slogan was translated incorrectly and read ‘Do Nothing’ which was not what the bank wanted their customers to do. Instead, they had to spend 10 million dollars redesigning the promotional campaign and then changing the tagline to The World’s Private Bank.

Don’t fly in the nude
In 1987 America’s Braniff International Airlines launched a campaign to introduce their all-new leather seats. The tagline was ‘Fly in Leather’. They decided to translated this tagline into Spanish. The translation read ‘Vuela en Cuero.’  In Spanish the word for leather is cuero, that was right but in Spanish slang en cuerros also means to be naked. So Spanish people thought the airline was telling them to ‘fly naked.’

A very nice car
In the 1970s Ford launched a car in Brazil called the Ford Pinto. The word Pinto represented the Pinto Horse’s power and speed. Unfortunately, Ford didn’t do their research properly and when the car was launched it caused a great deal of mirth amongst the Portuguese speaking Brazilians. Why? Because in Portuguese the slang term for a man with small genitalia is, yes, you’ve guessed, Pinto. The name was then changed to the Ford Corcel.

Jimmy Carter
In 1977 Jimmy Carter was the American President. He flew to Poland on a diplomatic trip. Unfortunately, he was given a translator who spoke Polish but had very little translation experience. During Jimmy Carter’s speech he said something about Poland’s desires for the future. But the translator told the audience that he had said Poland’s lusts for the future. A little embarrassing to say the least.

A man with horns
St. Jerome is the patron saint of translators. He studies Hebrew and then translated the Old Testament into Latin from the original instead of the language every other translator used which was Greek. Afterwards his translation was used hundreds of times before it was discovered he’s made a mistake. He had described Moises coming down from Mount Sinai with his head in radiance, but he had mistaken the Hebrew and what he actually said was Moises came down from Mount Sinai with horns on his head!

Make sure there’s a toilet close by
US company Coors had the tagline ‘turn it loose’ for it’s American beer. But when they decided to translate it word for word into Spanish it came out that they were saying drinking Coors beer would give you diarrhoea. Not a campaign that encouraged new customers!