Lost in Adadaptation翻译

Lost in Ad-adaptation

水土不服的广告标语

Pepsi Generation will bring your ancestors back from the dead. At least

, that’s what

the ads claimed in China.

百事在中国的广告语是：与百事世代一起活着。

But this wasn’t a one

-time accident.

There’s the often

-told (maybe untrue) story of

how the Chevy Nova’s sales in Latin America were miserable—

no va, it turns out in

Spanish means “won’t go.”

In all cross-cultural, cross- linguistic mar

keting, you’ve got

to

be

careful.

Some

of

the

world’s

best

-known

brands

have

tasted

the

bitter

humiliation

of

poor

slogan

translations

—

especi ally

in

China.

Not

only

are

foreign

marketers dealing with the fundamental cultural differences, but also two very

different linguistic milieus. Here, brand and ad translation have become arts in their

own right.

但这不仅是唯一的错误。

有一个关于雪弗莱汽车的故事经常被人们提 起

（可能是

谣言）

。由于雪弗莱的广告 标语

no

va

，译成西班牙语后意思 是“不走。

”导致雪

弗莱在拉丁美洲销量凄惨。在所有跨文化， 跨语言的市场上，你必须要谨慎。一

些世界知名品牌都经历过了广告翻译的痛苦与屈辱— 尤其是在中国。

外国商人需

要处理的不只是基本的文化差异，< /p>

还有两种截然不同的语言环境。

此时，

在 各个

领域中，品牌和广告标语的翻译成为了一门艺术。

The popular French megastore Carrefour is known in Chinese as Jia Le Fu (

家乐福

).

Not only is it a nice sonic approximation of the original name, but it also makes for

good Chinese marketing:

“

Family, Happy, Good Fortune.

”

The name might not draw

many

custome

rs

in

the

US

or

France,

but

in

China,

it’s

a

hit.

Unlike

their

Western

counterparts,

who

prefer

to

think

of themselves

as

individuals,

Chinese consumers

are attracted to things like family, harmony and stability.

倍受欢迎的法国购物广场

Carref our

在汉语中以家乐福而闻名。因为它的译名不

仅发音接近于 原始名字，而且有“家庭，幸福，好运”的含义，有助于它在中国

市场的推广。

在美国或者法国可能不会有这么多的顾客被这个名字所吸引，

但是

在中国却大受欢迎。

原因在于，

西方人更倾向 以个体为形式考虑自己，

而与西方

不同的是，中国消费者更容易 受到像家庭，和谐稳定这类词语的影响。

Chinese

is

based

on

symbols

and

their

meanings,

while

English

is

based

on

letters

and sounds. This is why translating something like Coca-Cola into Chinese can be so

difficult. While Coca-cola works as a brand name across the world, in China there was

a problem. There were hundreds of different characters

—

with the same sounds, but

very

different

meanings

—

that

could

have

been

used

to

spell

out

the

name.

The

characters

originally

used

to

market

the

soda

were

chosen

haphazardly.

The

first

translation that appeared

? “Bite the wax tadpole.” The next try was “Wax

-flattened

mare.” Neither were very appetizing.

中文是以符号及其所表达的含义为基 础，

而英语是以字母和发音为基础。

这就解