1. THE SEVENTY-ONE-MILLION-DOLLAR WORD
During the 1980s, Willie Ramirez, who was only 18 years old, was admitted in a Florida hospital. Spanish was the only language spoken with his family and friends and they had to coordinate with the doctors. One of the hospital staff spoke 2 languages and translated the Spanish word ‘intoxicado’ as ‘intoxicated’. Therefore, he was given medications for intoxication that is of course not his real case. That is where the whole problem began. Only if a professional interpreter was on duty in the same hospital, Willie would not have been a quadriplegic since then. He was actually suffering from internal brain hemorrhage but the family thought the boy was food-poisoned. The hospital and the doctors were later charged with severe malpractice in which the family was paid Seventy One Million dollars as settlement. This is the most costly of the Translation Mistakes we know about.
2. YOUR LUSTS FOR THE FUTURE
President Carter once traveled to Poland in 1977 where the head of the State Department acquired the services of an interpreter. Unfortunately, the Russian interpreter who recognized a little in Polish interpreted “when I abandoned the US” and “your desires for the future” wrongly. You should see that not all words have the same meaning when used in a sentence or a phrase.
