Lost in translation 2

Following our post about translation problems we've come across, we then came across this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7702913.stm

Hilarious!

Envy!

Nothing to do with a private members club this time. Three of us worked late today. Needing a short break we went for a walk. All of these scenes were within 200 metres of our office. It seems we were the only three people in Soho without a drink in our hands. We were envious, but we also appreciated working in one of the best areas of one of the best cities in the world. Earlier Simon had bumped into his friend Don, who had suggested a drink after work. If he hadn't had to work late, he would have been in the scene, rather than recording it!

Lost in translation

Some time ago one of us spent the weekend in Venice with a rather attractive Italian girl following a conference presentation. (We should make it clear that they hadn't just met at the conference!) They stayed at the Metropole, one of Venice's palace hotels. Here are some pictures of it:

That stay put us on their mailing list and a mailing arrived a few days ago. It told us about the forthcoming Redentore Festival, a Manet exhibition in association with Musee D'Orsay in the Doges Palace, and after all that culture there was a promotional offer of four nights stay for the price of three.

Here is the promotional offer:

 "Be different, be our REPEAT guest." Surely they don't mean that? Does no one ever go back again? We suspect they meant something different, but it got lost in translation.

And some time ago we were working in Ukraine (a dreadful place, by the way). We were briefing a research agency and the stimulus had been sent to the agency in advance by the client's ad agency in London, who had got it translated. On arrival at the Ukrainian research agency the charming moderator said "What language is the stimulus in?" - The ad agency had translated it into the wrong language!

At about the same time we were looking for a translation service in the Czech Republic. We did a Google search for Czech translation services. Unsurprisingly the websites were multilingual. Not very encouragingly, two of them had mistranslated the English......

All amusing errors, but translating one language into another shouldn't be that difficult, should it? Just get a local to check it, for goodness sake!

Why oh why do Headhunters think that's a good idea?

Why do they think what is a good idea?  Interviewing people in private members clubs.

We see it happen all the time.

We can think of nothing more unnatural than being interviewed for a job in front of a room full of people, many of whom by the nature of the venue are going to be your peers. How can headhunters think they're going to get the real person in that situation?

We had the excruciating misfortune of overhearing someone we know being interviewed recently. She was waxing lyrical about one of her strengths being her advertising judgement. She wouldn't recognise a good ad if it walked into the room with a sign on it's head saying "I'm a good ad, and what's more David Ogilvy thinks so too."

We don't like the phrase "get a room" but in this instance it seems appropriate.