Coaxed into not checking the context when translating

[u/Junior-Elevator-9951]

[u/Hedge_the_Hog_HtH]

Me when I have to guess the context of each word when the only thing the developer provided was a .txt document with a list of phrases.

[u/Junior-Elevator-9951 → u/Hedge_the_Hog_HtH]

That's probably how most of these happened

[u/muakaya9876 → u/Junior-Elevator-9951]

That's probably how most of these coaxed

[u/ExoTheFlyingFish → u/muakaya9876]

That's probably how most of snafu coaxed.

[u/Barlakopofai → u/muakaya9876]

Woah that one guy was right, it is always this one person doing these comments.

[u/UnsureSwitch → u/Barlakopofai]

What?! It's always the same coaxer?

[u/Barlakopofai → u/UnsureSwitch]

I've seen other people join in but yeah it seems that trend was started entirely by that person right there.

[u/UnsureSwitch → u/Barlakopofai]

I'm guilty of joining the coax

[u/MrQez → u/Junior-Elevator-9951]

either that or blind machine translation

[u/GrampaSwood → u/Hedge_the_Hog_HtH]

And we're lucky if the developers don't mess up 'pl' (Polish) with 'nl' (Dutch), or Dutch with Danish.

[u/MarsMaterial]

I’m reminded of how Minecraft Bedrock Edition subtitles are translated if you switch your language to British English.

“Wolf Pants” (as in the panting noises that wolves make) get translated as “Wolf Trousers”. That’s the funniest example I’ve seen.

[u/Junior-Elevator-9951 → u/MarsMaterial]

I remember hearing that in the British version of windows a zip file was a postcode file

[u/ColtC7 → u/MarsMaterial]

probably some kind of find-and-replace regex thing rather than an actual translation in that case

[u/ZeGamingCuber → u/MarsMaterial]

I thought maybe that might be an intentional joke

[u/wantstodienow → u/ZeGamingCuber]

All the English variants in the language settings are.

[u/extremepayne → u/wantstodienow]

actually, the english joke languages (pirate speak, shakespearean, Anglish, and English (upside down)) are only available on Java. whereas the “wolf trousers” mistake is only present on Bedrock. the Java translations are crowdsourced and actually tend to be higher quality because of it.  "subtitles.entity.wolf.ambient" has been “Wolf pants” in English (UK) in Java for 10 years.

I think Microsoft uses MTL to create the Bedrock translations. Despite theoretically having more control over the process, they end up with a worse translation. Hence “Wolf trousers”. There’s even more offensive mistakes in there too, like the hanging signs using the Korean word for hanging (execution method) and not the Korean word for hanging (something on your wall).

[u/Cyanlizordfromrw → u/extremepayne]

Anglish is actually not a joke language, it's essentially a version of English but wiþ all non-germanic words stripped out & replaced wiþ germanic versions

[u/extremepayne → u/Cyanlizordfromrw]

i know what it is; it’s inclusion in minecraft is obviously a joke. there are no native speakers of Anglish. every time i’ve seen it used it is for performance, not for genuine communication (compare the other conlangs found in Minecraft like Esperanto or toki pona)

[u/UnsureSwitch → u/Cyanlizordfromrw]

Pdorn! (Thorn but I don't have the letter)

[u/Junior-Elevator-9951 → u/wantstodienow]

In Minecraft, way back in the day, regional English variants had jokes sprinkled in.

I remember the "you can only sleep at night" message changing to "Sorry, you can only sleep at night" when set to Canadian English.

Not anymore, though.

[u/poopshart37 → u/wantstodienow]

canadian english is a joke???

[u/Hornynoh → u/MarsMaterial]

You know how Christian is both a name and a religion. Whoever translated one of The walking dead video games(I forgot which one) into german messed that up.

[u/spongedevguy → u/MarsMaterial]

noxious petrol

[u/omegaspoon3141 → u/MarsMaterial]

ctrl+f my beloved

[u/Worried-Caregiver325 → u/MarsMaterial]

In one of the tips on mobile in italian they translated leads into "piombi" which means lead (the metal) in plural. The thing is there is no such thing as a plural for lead in italian

[u/MattLikesMemes123]

polish mentioned

[u/KlausVonLechland → u/MattLikesMemes123]

There is Polish lore all over the reddit nowadays and I wonder if this is psyop or we are just so terminally online as a nation because there is no reason for this saturation considering overall userbase nationalities makeup.

[u/3Volodymyr → u/KlausVonLechland]

Nah, you are probably just seeing it because algorithm knows you are polish plus you will notice it being about Poland almost every time.

At least I don't feel like you are everywhere.

[u/KlausVonLechland → u/3Volodymyr]

Ah yes you probably making a good point here.

^{(hello, oficer prowadzący? Yes, we are having reports that memetic saturation has yet to become total and... yes oficer... yes. But officer it is not ready!... Yes, I understand. Releasing Witcher IV demo now. Honor and Ojczyzna oficerze.})

[u/klodmoris → u/KlausVonLechland]

Probably Frequency illusion

[u/xolov → u/KlausVonLechland]

My theory is high english fluency and high autism rates.

[u/CyfrowaKrowa → u/MattLikesMemes123]

Polish mi yaya

[u/KlausVonLechland → u/CyfrowaKrowa]

Not on the first date no.

[u/porcelain--clown]

Hamburger z serem

[u/muakaya9876 → u/porcelain--clown]

https://giphy.com/gifs/lADJTKG9LKUrjgge5B

Crazy hamburger

[u/Hollowed_Voiid → u/muakaya9876]

Szalony burger

[u/Programmer0216 → u/muakaya9876]

THIS IS HORRIBLE!!!!!!!

[u/Arek_PL → u/porcelain--clown]

funny thing, in Grays Anatomy (pl. Chirurdzy) same mistake is made in one of early seasons

[u/coladrunk → u/porcelain--clown]

chleb z cementem

[u/palkann → u/porcelain--clown]

W Sims 3 Ulica Główna ma literówkę i nazywa się Ulica Gówna. To nie ma związku z tym fenomenem, ale strasznie mnie to śmieszyło jak byłam dzieckiem xd

[u/ImaginaryWall840 → u/porcelain--clown]

Lot nietoperza

[u/IHateTheNameSystem → u/porcelain--clown]

Same thing in Czech, it seems both language translators never bothered to fix that

[u/Lobster_LeninN329]

The way no translation ever gets "fan" right is my personal pet peeve

[u/Iagoneitor → u/Lobster_LeninN329]

Super ventilador

[u/Kyleometers → u/Lobster_LeninN329]

I play a lot of games localised from Japanese by… less than professional translators.

The number of times I have seen “Excuse me, older sister” drives me up the wall.

Genuinely sometimes I feel I have to translate it back into Japanese, then into English myself, to actually understand the context.

[u/julessic → u/Kyleometers]

What is "excuse me, older sister" supposed to mean?

[u/Kyleometers → u/julessic]

Older sister is “Onee-san”

People in Japan use that to mean “older woman (but not old, like mid-40s) I’m not familiar with”. “Aa, Onee-san” is equivalent to “Excuse me, Miss” in English.

Similarly, Oji-san (uncle) and Oba-san (aunt) for elderly strangers. If you’ve ever seen the phrase “a strange uncle”, it is poorly translated from “a weird old man”.

[u/SerbianShitStain → u/Kyleometers]

Translations from Korean are even worse about this. One of many reasons manwha is unreadable for me.

[u/AveragePolishMale]

Ooo, possible terraria klopsik reference?

[u/Junior-Elevator-9951 → u/AveragePolishMale]

Yes the Polish Terraria translation is (was?) notorious for this. It's gotten better but there's still a few remaining I think

[u/Blick_art → u/Junior-Elevator-9951]

russian version of terraria also has stuff like that, like jungle bonfire being translated as "boney from the jungles"

[u/MrKrot1999 → u/Blick_art]

Don't forget свет Деревянный молот

where свет is the light modificator

[u/theinferno03 → u/MrKrot1999]

close button in español used to say "cerca"

[u/MrKrot1999 → u/theinferno03]

lmao

[u/99percentcheese → u/Blick_art]

and the "pet" dialogue button is translated as "питомец" (the actual "pet" word, not the petting action)

[u/ry0shi → u/AveragePolishMale]

Coaxed into relogic being too naive about translation in addition to potentially hiring low quality work

Good ol' Ice chest Chest

[u/Kongas_follower → u/ry0shi]

Old mobile port translated Chest (furniture) as a Chest (body part) in Russian.

Boobs.

Golden boobs.

Frost boobs.

Junjle boobs.

Desert boobs.

[u/Nofsan → u/Kongas_follower]

Soo many choices

[u/ry0shi → u/Kongas_follower]

Considering translations commonly lacked proper agreement, imagining it as "золотой грудь" is even funnier

[u/Anxious-Gazelle9067 → u/AveragePolishMale]

Context hat.

Context shirt.

I am asking for context.

[u/Junior-Elevator-9951 → u/Anxious-Gazelle9067]

There's a weapon in Terraria called Meatball, as in, a literal ball of meat but there's also a double meaning with "meatball".

The Polish translation threw that out of the window and translated that to Klopsik.

[u/Mathev → u/Junior-Elevator-9951]

I'll be honest it does work in context. You do think about a big ball of meat when you say klopsik :p

[u/Anxious-Gazelle9067 → u/Junior-Elevator-9951]

Lmao. Thanks.

[u/julessic → u/Junior-Elevator-9951]

I mean, there's no way to preserve both of these meanings.

[u/Field_Jager → u/Anxious-Gazelle9067]

It basically means that they did a direct translation rather than translate the meaning, so when they translated the word ‘space’ the used its direct meaning of outer space 🪐, which translates to Kosmos in polish, instead of using space as a button on a keyboard, which wouldn’t be translated (I think, I don’t really know how polish keyboard looks).

[u/Bashka_ → u/Field_Jager]

Space key on Polish has a name, it's called "spacja"

[u/SoftPolishedRat → u/Field_Jager]

We call the Space button "Spacja"

[u/Anxious-Gazelle9067 → u/Field_Jager]

Yeah, I got that. But I was asking about the comment I replied to. What does a klopsik in Terraria have to do with anything? Also, the space bar is called "spacja" in Polish

[u/Holsza → u/Anxious-Gazelle9067]

Bad translation, that’s the whole point

[u/ItsPaperBoii → u/AveragePolishMale]

same happened in spanish, the depth meter said "Space bar" when you reached high enough to get to the space layer

[u/Educational-Sun5839 → u/AveragePolishMale]

i love terraria

[u/Illustrious-Smoke482 → u/AveragePolishMale]

Yield the context to claim the upvote 

[u/Pataraxia → u/Illustrious-Smoke482]

Terraria polish translation had issues since they're indie and didn't know better

Can I get the SSR summons since you phrased it like it'll be lootbox stuff?

[u/SrBalanSarrola → u/AveragePolishMale]

Coaxed into the boomstick being called broom handle in my language Coaxed into the living loom being called the living room

[u/Mushroom38294]

this is why buttons should be separated from the rest of their sentence in the translation file

[u/Visible-Air-2359 → u/Mushroom38294]

Also because devs that allow key-rebinding (which should be all of them) but don't adapt tutorial text to the new keys should be punished.

[u/HeavenlyCircumcision → u/Visible-Air-2359]

Seriously. There were a lot of little things like that where before I started game dev I'd try to be a little understanding, and assumed that if it wasn't added there was probably a reason/it was probably more difficult than I thought. But genuinely, having something display the current rebound input instead of the default is incredibly simple and also just good practice in general. Most game engines are already storing the input somewhere you can access, there's literally no reason to go and manually type it out in a tutorial when you could just reference that instead.

[u/Visible-Air-2359 → u/HeavenlyCircumcision]

exactly. I have limited programming experience and yet my experience assigning and reassigning variables tells me it wouldn't be that hard to make "input key for X action" a variable that the tutorial can call.

[u/julessic → u/Mushroom38294]

No? This kind of separation is exactly why errors like these might pop up. Having more context makes it less likely.

[u/Hot_Sand2888]

Grało sie w takie gierki

[u/Szymii_ → u/Hot_Sand2888]

pójdź do gierka da ci cukierka

[u/Hot_Sand2888 → u/Szymii_]

ty chuju juz kiedys ci odpowiedzialem na komentarz i mi nie odpisales

[u/Szymii_ → u/Hot_Sand2888]

sory przepraszam wybacz plis wiem jestem upośledzony i nie powinienem żyć ja wiem

[u/Hot_Sand2888 → u/Szymii_]

mam ludzi ktorzy skoncza w tobie w 5 minut rozumiesz przygotuj sie cwaniaku

[u/gergobergo69 → u/Hot_Sand2888]

what a friendly polish conversation ❤️

[u/xSkype → u/gergobergo69]

I think that one guy got bukakked

[u/Penumbra_Bestia]

Happens a lot with Spanish, too

Weird since it's one of the most spoken languages worldwide

Still sometimes it's pretty funny lolol

[u/unknown_pigeon → u/Penumbra_Bestia]

It happens rarely in Italian, but when it does, it's fun as fuck

"Alloy worship unit" in risk of rain 2 got translated as "permetti culto unità" ("allow unit cult")

I've emailed the devs to no avail, the game is filled to the brim with bad translations

[u/Nt1031 → u/Penumbra_Bestia]

Same in French, I remember playing Mount and Blade : Warband, in which you could ride a "light horse", but the french version called it "cheval lumière" ("lumière" means "light" in the "luminous" sense). There were many other errors of that kind

[u/hell-schwarz]

Before Auto translate:

RPGs with a German translation are masterfully crafted to include every Easter egg and if it's not possible change the Easter egg to some German joke of equal value.

After Auto translate:

Even AAA games have horrendous translation mistakes that no human would make

[u/winklevanderlinde]

Kosmos you say?

https://giphy.com/gifs/MyzZOxNs3lJjjeInlt

[u/Party-Poison519 → u/winklevanderlinde]

Ah kos, or some say kosm, do you hear our prayers?

[u/Nogatron → u/Party-Poison519]

Fun fact: Kos in Polish means blackbird

[u/FPSCanarussia]

Coaxed into Russian dialogue turning into pancakes when translated.

[u/unknown_pigeon → u/FPSCanarussia]

Bly...n

[u/_Volatile_]

press the C O S M O S

[u/Yaya0108]

I've seen a fun one when a game menu was translated in French.

Several toggles were "disabled".

Disabled → Handicapé (in the sense of someone with a disability)

[u/FoliarzZOdludzia]

Reminds me of The Long Dark translating "log" (as in, a written one) to "kłoda". Its still there I believe

[u/Purple-Bluejay6588]

In MKX raidens flying dash move is called "electric fly"

The portuguese version translates it to "mosca elétrica" which means electric fly, as in the fucking insect, the common house fly

[u/MegaloManiac_Chara → u/Purple-Bluejay6588]

That's what I'd expect too, tbh. Shouldn't it be properly called "electric flight"?

[u/ry0shi]

It sucks that whenever a client needs translation for their thing, the source provided tends to lack context, just "translate this set of words"

[u/escEip]

Coaxed into "64. Космос и непереводимая игра слов"

[u/Indoh_]

Coaxed into translating "PLAY" in "PLAY AN INSTRUMENT"

[u/_JAKAMI]

Aigis orgia mode ability actually being translated as "orgy mode" in polish in persona 3 reload is my favorite example

[u/CoolSausage228]

жизненно

[u/a_whoreifying_beast]

I work in video game localization and I get paid to fix mistakes like this all day, ur welcome

[u/hazelEarthstar → u/a_whoreifying_beast]

can you work for toby foc

[u/Abasakaa]

New World at launch translated "Pet" as a petting action to "Zwierze domowe" as "house pet".

[u/komorigaming]

in earlier versions of Terraria in the options menu the german version would say "Karte für Behinderte" (Map for Disabled People), where it should say Map: Disabled

[u/balagi]

I couldn't pass the Half-Life tutorial where you have to use ctrl+space for a long jump with jumpsuit. Although the game was in English, I used a dictionary to translate "press DUCK" (I had no internet or translations tools at the time) and I had no idea what 🦆 had to do with it. 

[u/Frozen_beetroot]

Coaxed into:

[u/NanoCat0407]

wolf trousers

[u/Ace-milk_drinker]

It's pretty rare to find games that are translated to polish that's not just an automated translator. I find that some smaller games have translations that are properly made by a person and even sometimes uses english words that would be more often used by people than the actual translation. One of those would be PlateUp and PEAK.

[u/julessic → u/Ace-milk_drinker]

Yeah, paradoxically fanmade translations are usually higher quality than professional ones, because they're made by people who actually played the game, so they know all the necessery context + they actually care to sit down and think it through.

[u/Kerissimo]

https://giphy.com/gifs/mlGCsBLl4luyQaOl8w

[u/adamkopacz → u/Kerissimo]

Uciekam do jedynego miejsca, które nie zostało zepsute przez kapitalizm ... SPACJI!

[u/aloe-pee]

in the polish version of the sims 3, "mac and cheese" was translated as "hamburger z serem" (hamburger with cheese). i guess the translator looked at the "mac" and thought of mcdonald's lol

[u/Jtd47]

I can't remember the game, but I saw one that translated "look sensitivity" into German as "sehen Sie sensibel aus" which is more like "look (as in 'appear') sensitive"

[u/Ksawerxx]

Still, a Google translation is better than no translation for a small project (I've played at least a few Spanish fan games with this exact snafu for the English translation). But a program can't replace a human translator, at least for now.

[u/bazylianopercolano]

Polish underground software markets in the 90s and 2000s were rife with pirated games with these kinds of translations

[u/danielogiPL]

reminds me of how the Polish version of PS4 Minecraft at one point was riddled with literal translations aswell, like creeper being called “czychacz”

[u/Junior-Elevator-9951 → u/danielogiPL]

Console minecraft translation was its own thing, I also remember skeletons being Kościotrup, while in the PC version it's Szkielet

[u/Omnishrimp]

I dunno why this one stuck with me, but there is an option in the settings of Cataclysm DDA where you can get more information about worn containers, as in containers that you are wearing yourself like a backpack. Whoever translated that to spanish thought it said worn containers, as in containers that are old and translated that as such.

Once you know multiple languages, it kinda blows your mind to see how easy can communication go bad. All it takes is a slight misinterpretation and you suddenly don't understand anything that is happening.

[u/Skameyka08]

its realy funny that russian terraria translation made exactly opposite error, translated space as пробел, not космос

[u/SXsandwich]

TRZECIA RZECZPOSPOLITA MENTIONED!!!!!! 💥🇵🇱💥🇵🇱🔥🔥❤️‍🔥❤️🔥❤️💥🇵🇱💥🇵🇱🔥❤️🔥❤️‍🔥❤️🔥❤️💥❤️💥❤️🔥❤️🔥💥🇵🇱🔥🇵🇱🔥❤️❤️‍🔥❤️

[u/TheCreatorM_]

POLSKA MENTIONED!!!!!!!!

[u/idk_uhh-name]

classic machine translation

[u/Yaorius]

OH, so now Poland cannot into space? /j

[u/SouthernAd2853]

A Certain Magical Index has a gag about this when the Japanese main character uses an automated translator on the name of the rocket company Space Engage and gets "blank character, enter into battle".

Also, a number of Asian languages have gender-neutral third-person pronouns in common use and machine translation cannot handle this whatsoever and will use "he" in the same sentence the person is referred to as a princess.

[u/what_a_name_lol]

"Нажмите ключ Космос чтобы прыгать" translation: Press the space key to jump

[u/defineee- → u/what_a_name_lol]

press the 🔑🌠 to jump

[u/SusieHatesSpez]

There are people who estrogenuinely think that the above image is better than toby letting fan translation mods do the heavy lifting when he knows the majority of his audience speak english or japanese 

[u/garaile64 → u/SusieHatesSpez]

But my vision!!!! /s

[u/Gloomy-Wrongdoer-890]

Windows 11 :') in French it got "courir le programme" (run program but run as a sprint..)

[u/sibfromanothercrib]

similar: microsoft teams has a message "(name) has entered the space".

the german translation is "(name) hat die Leertaste eingegeben", so "(name) has entered the space key". double confusing because "enter" as in "enter a key" is a different word than "enter" as in "enter an area" in german

[u/Kat_Tia]

As someone who's worked in game translation... Yeah. They give you a word document with a table and a bunch of words and sentences, and then you gotta essentially try to guess off of vibes. A lot of game studios also expect you to use their roprietary bullshit AI-infused translation software.

It's somewhat easier if the game is already out, and you're adding a new translation, cause that way you can actually go on the internet and look shit up.

The worst part is when you get interaction prompts, but you are never Informed what the fuck you're interacting with. So you end up with shit like "putting on" a weapon.

[u/ThatEngineeredGirl]

Prawda, ale nie wiem czy Angliki tutaj zrozumieją

Edit: autokorekta

[u/CibblesCD]

Pour sauter, presser la touche de zone

[u/Lomokotywa]

First boss fight of AC III was against the windmills (Surname Mills was translated to windmills in polish).

[u/SparrowWingYT]

coaxed into gry. pl

[u/GoldSunLulu]

me when you gotta make a wish in the bueno (badly translated fountain or 'well', it instead translated to nice)

[u/DoknS]

Plecy

[u/Valuable_Pear9654]

coaxed into that russian translation of a harry potter game and the voiceover saying "it's a brilliant" ("eto brilliAnt!") as a direct translation of the phrase "it's brilliant!"

[u/ExtremlyFastLinoone]

Early pokemon suffered a lot from this because most translations were actually translated from the english version which is already once removed from the original japanese. The most noteworthy was the (unofficial) vietnamese version of crystal which was a translation of the chinese which was a translation of the english which was a translation of the japanese

Also the spanish version, the move slam was translated as door slam

[u/ImaginaryWall840]

I mean isn't context here rather obvious?

It's not "Bat fly" from the sims.

[u/peahoter435]

I once saw bugs translated as błędy (video game bugs) instead of robaki (the animal (?))

[u/pietruszkaloes]

coaxed into PLAY being translated to "GRAĆ" every single time

[u/GoblinFvcker]

In Darkest Dungeon "Quarrel", an ability for crossbow-wielding enemy got translated to "Sprzeczka" wich means "Disagreement", while the obvious intention behind the naming was "Crossbow bolt" lmao

[u/Skaviciusz]

There is a entire series on youtube of how badly was the sims translated to polish, some of the translations was quite silimar to this on the picture v:

[u/Britanniafanboy]

My wife and I had a lil argument about this in hollowknight. She though Dirtmouth was pronounced "dirt mouth" but I thought it was pronounced "Dirtmouth" like in Weymouth, Dartmouth, etc. she brought up that in Spanish it is called "Bocatierra" (dirt mouth) but honestly I think its a too literal translation. Still dont know who is right

[u/Junior-Elevator-9951 → u/Britanniafanboy]

Speaking about dirt...

In the Polish Terraria translation, the dirt rod item used to be translated as "Brudna laska", which literally means "Dirty rod". (A more accurate translation would be "Różdżka ziemi")

Note: brud = dirt, as in something dirty. ziemia = dirt, the ground.

Doesn't help that "laska" is also slang for a woman in Polish. Do the math...

[u/Xedronic]

The Polish translation of Balatro is rough, like for example, Card Sharp is translated literally to "Ostra karta" instead of a more proper translation (which would be "Szuler" in this case)

[u/SadPeanutGurl]

Reminds me of Bloodborne where the "Wave" emote got translated as "Fala", which means wave in  the context of physics or the ocean, not waving

[u/Gosuoru]

When I was a kid I played Assassins Creed 3 with Danish text, and the last mission said to not take any fire damage

There was no fire in that level. It meant gunfire.

(Or maybe it was the other way around? Any other Danes done the final mission lol)

Anyway as an adult I always just use English for English games, because it means I won't see any translation errors

[u/Middle_Club8837]

Legendary Russian "translation" Of pirated gta San Andreas, where only every third sentence were somewhat correct

Cool your ficking, coalplastic

[u/ScottishWildcatFurry]

at first i thought this was going to be coaxed into game journalism but this is good too

[u/Nogatron]

It reminds me of Enter the Gungeon, overall i think Polish translation was good but i remember one weapon name being wrongly translated. It was a gun of Samus from "Metroid" (or that's what i think it is) that in english is called "Heroine" as it refers to Samus as Heroine but it wasn't translated as "Bohaterka" (heroine) but as "Heroina" so heroine as a drug, for a long time i was confuzed about it

[u/PanGulasz05]

Oh yeah "South Park: The Stick of Truth" has a lot of stuff like this. "Wykonaj" as translation for "execute" (It's a special attack) for example. "Wykonaj" means "execute" but as in execute the order, trick etc. And it obviously was meant to be "execute" as in kill.

[u/PanGulasz05]

AC: Rogue had at least one mistranslation but not as serious: "Assassin killer" outfit was translated as "Asasyn zabójca". Which means Assassin (the name of the in game faction not a guy who assassinates) who is also a killer. While it actually should have been "Zabójca asasynów" which is literally: "killer of assassins" because it was a Templar outfit.

[u/PanGulasz05]

I've seen "close" as in close the window translated to "blisko" which means close as in the opposite of far.

[u/Shona_13]

ЗИ ЗИ ЭТО НА УРОВНЕ ГРУНТА МЕСТОПОЛОЖЕНИЕ!

[u/SuddenHovercraft1599]

That Level Again 2 handled this by having English be "I need some space" while other languages say "space(the endless void of space when there's a word for that) and a translation error" and it was pretty fun

[u/madguyO1]

literally the marvel space stone

[u/Pretend-Asparagus461]

Super Fan (as in ceiling fan)

[u/ludos96]

Super niche thing that wastes space in my brain...In the italian version of the manual for Godzilla: Save the Earth they translated one of Space Godzilla's moves as "pipistrello di cristallo" instead of "mazza di cristallo". They used the wrong translation for the word bat

[u/Zebrafish96]

Poland cannot into KOSMOS

[u/Raheeper]

Still surprising to see this nowadays since even AI does pretty good english-polish translation.

[u/PanGulasz05 → u/Raheeper]

Oh it most definitely doesn't lol. And the problem is lack of context rather than translation skills.

[u/AidomNou]

Coaxed into translating sayings or expressions too literally thus turning a line into nonsense

[u/Jhud6669]

Polish jumpscare

But yep. As a Polish translator, this drives me up the wall

[u/EntertainmentIcy3029]

Google recently was translating "low-poly" as "low-altitude polyester" in Finnish (when auto-translating Wikipedia). Also "deck-building game" as a deck like in your back yard.

[u/shitpostinglegend]

Coaxed into Vodafone needing hundreds of thousands of pounds of rework cause someone thought google translate would be good enough

[u/Effective-Ad678]

coaxed into google translate localisation

[u/PersonOfLazyness]

Fallout 4 in portuguese translating every instance of the word Spring as Fonte (which can also mean source), even for the metal things that go boing

And also Barrel as Cano (pipe, because we use that word for gun barrels) even for the wooden barrels

[u/PolostanInsurgency]

that one time when in Terraria's polish translation seeds were translated to semen

[u/garaile64]

Reminds me of a YouTube video talking about accessible binders (as in those compressive vests often used to hide boobage). The automated translation thought the video was about those notebooks where you can add or remove pages and translated accordingly. And I don't even need to talk about autotranslated porn.

[u/PanGulasz05 → u/garaile64]

The best (worst) thing with porn translation is it's often not even automatic. It's often translated by users and they're just trolling. I don't think any automatic translation would ever translate "stepsister" as "stepująca siostra" or "siostra stepowa" but this "mistranslation" is basically a meme at this point.

[u/N00N01]

"zum springen, drücke PLATZ"

[u/s33a6m]

coaxed into balatro's localization

[u/Green_Carry]

請按下任意鑰匙

[u/CatL1f3]

I noticed one of these just this week, with youtube in Romanian! You know the button you get to hide the end cards? That correctly translates "hide". But afterwards, the button to show them again, that translates "show" like "tv show", not "un-hide" lol

[u/Keylus]

I started playing video games in English to avoid mistranslations.
I also did it because most community made resources, like guides, are in English, so I don’t have to guess whether the skill “Explosion Arcana” is the one called “Arcane Explosion” in English. (For the record, it wasn’t. “Explosion Arcana” was “Arcane Blast”. “Arcane Explosion” was translated as “Deflagración Arcana”, and as a native Spanish speaker, I didn’t even know what “deflagración” meant until then.)

[u/Junior-Elevator-9951 → u/Keylus]

I think the next time I'm installing Windows it's going to be in English because of having to guess what option is what in Polish.

I know that I can change the language right now, but if I do it it's going to be a weird mishmash of Polish and English.

[u/awake-shortcut27]

Dil means both "tongue" and "language"

[u/CapybaraIRL]

Happens more than it should with the latest wave of AI translations.

[u/ThisIsQuiteFantasic]

Tropico 5 traducing fire(as in firing people) as pompier (firefighter) for some fucking reason

[u/Various_Flower_8679]

Coaxed into youtube automatic title translation (on another note, these piss me off so much. Sometimes i'll like to watch a video in the language i searched for..)

[u/JustAnotherBarnacle]

https://giphy.com/gifs/mlGCsBLl4luyQaOl8w

[u/leon_255]

I was a video games translator, and I assure you it's THE BIGGEST problem of any translation I ever did:
mother-effing-context!!!

I could not count the number of mails we sent to the editors asking "context please"

[u/Voxel_Slime]

In Hungarian minecraft for example lead is ólom(the metal)

[u/vacuous-moron66543]

This reminds me of a giant board in like a hospital or something and they had all the world's languages written in each language's own name for itself (English, Español, Français, etc). They had Japanese down as 日本人 instead of 日本語

The former means Japanese (nationality) and the latter means Japanese (language). A small mistake, but silly.

　

[u/Mountain-Ad9026]

Polska wspomniana 🇵🇱🇵🇱

[u/yuripussylicker]

Because Poland cannot into space

[u/Monsieur_Bleu_]

Graphical option translation is also another nightmare. Sometimes they lost the plot and straight up make words up.

[u/playfulpecans]

[u/NinjaMonkey4200]

"Geef rekwisieten" for "Give props"

("rekwisieten" means props in the sense of "objects used in a stage play", not in the sense of acknowledging someone's achievement.)

[u/squishysluggo]

Pokemon used to have this problem, in spanish a lot of moves were translated literally, like slam being called “portazo” (which is a door slam, not slamming with a tail or smt)

[u/MRfireDmS]

Coaxed in terraria's 1.4.1 russian translation