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Languages are already imprecise, fuzzy, or ambiguous and can lead to miscommunication if you’re not careful.  The tendency of an average person to omit, alter, or even embellish the words of another is well known. It doesn’t take much consideration to conclude that the ability to communicate accurately is not as easy as it is often assumed, particularly with regards in conveying complex concepts or technical or specialized terminology.

Searching the internet I found a very interesting article written by the linguist Arika Okrent which I proceed to copy and paste which can help to illustrate the importance of a good translation / interpretation when something goes wrong:
1.THE SEVENTY-ONE-MILLION-DOLLAR WORD

In 1980, 18-year-old Willie Ramirez was admitted to a Florida hospital in a comatose state. His friends and family tried to describe his condition to the paramedics and doctors who treated him, but they only spoke Spanish. Translation was provided by a bilingual staff member who translated “intoxicado” as “intoxicated.” A professional interpreter would have known that “intoxicado” is closer to “poisoned” and doesn’t carry the same connotations of drug or alcohol use that “intoxicated” does. Ramirez’s family believed he was suffering from food poisoning. He was actually suffering from an intracerebral hemorrhage, but the doctors proceeded as if he were suffering from an intentional drug overdose, which can lead to some of the symptoms he displayed. Because of the delay in treatment, Ramirez was left quadriplegic. He received a malpractice settlement of $71 million.

2.YOUR LUSTS FOR THE FUTURE

When President Carter traveled to Poland in 1977, the State Department hired a Russian interpreter who knew Polish, but was not used to interpreting professionally in that language. Through the interpreter, Carter ended up saying things in Polish like “when I abandoned the United States” (for “when I left the United States”) and “your lusts for the future” (for “your desires for the future”), mistakes that the media in both countries very much enjoyed.

3.WE WILL BURY YOU

At the height of the cold war, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev gave a speech in which he uttered a phrase that interpreted from Russian as “we will bury you.” It was taken as chilling threat to bury the U.S. with a nuclear attack and escalated the tension between the U.S. and Russia. However, the translation was a bit too literal. The sense of the Russian phrase was more that “we will live to see you buried” or “we will outlast you.” Still not exactly friendly, but not quite so threatening.

4.DO NOTHING

In 2009, HSBC bank had to launch a $10 million rebranding campaign to repair the damage done when its catchphrase “Assume Nothing” was mistranslated as “Do Nothing” in various countries.

5.MARKETS TUMBLE

A panic in the world’s foreign exchange market led the U.S. dollar to plunge in value after a poor English translation of an article by Guan Xiangdong of the China News Service zoomed around the Internet. The original article was a casual, speculative overview of some financial reports, but the English translation sounded much more authoritative and concrete.

6.WHAT’S THAT ON MOSES’S HEAD?

St. Jerome, the patron saint of translators, studied Hebrew so he could translate the Old Testament into Latin from the original, instead of from the third century Greek version that everyone else had used. The resulting Latin version, which became the basis for hundreds of subsequent translations, contained a famous mistake. When Moses comes down from Mount Sinai his head has “radiance” or, in Hebrew, “karan.” But Hebrew is written without the vowels, and St. Jerome had read “karan” as “keren,” or “horned.” From this error came centuries of paintings and sculptures of Moses with horns and the odd offensive stereotype of the horned Jew.

7.CHOCOLATES FOR HIM

In the 50s, when chocolate companies began encouraging people to celebrate Valentine’s Day in Japan, a mistranslation from one company gave people the idea that it was customary for women to give chocolate to men on the holiday. And that’s what they do to this day. On February 14, the women of Japan shower their men with chocolate hearts and truffles, and on March 14 the men return the favor. An all-around win for the chocolate companies!

8.YOU MUST DEFEAT SHENG LONG

In the Japanese video game Street Fighter II a character says, “if you cannot overcome the Rising Dragon Punch, you cannot win!” When this was translated from Japanese into English, the characters for “rising dragon” were interpreted as “Sheng Long.” The same characters can have different readings in Japanese, and the translator, working on a list of phrases and unaware of the context, thought a new person was being introduced to the game. Gamers went crazy trying to figure out who this Sheng Long was and how they could defeat him. In 1992, as an April Fools Day joke, Electronic Gaming Monthly published elaborate and difficult to execute instructions for how to find Sheng Long. It wasn’t revealed as a hoax until that December, after countless hours had no doubt been wasted.

9.TROUBLE AT WAITANGI

In 1840, the British government made a deal with the Maori chiefs in New Zealand. The Maori wanted protection from marauding convicts, sailors, and traders running roughshod through their villages, and the British wanted to expand their colonial holdings. The Treaty of Waitangi was drawn up and both sides signed it. But they were signing different documents. In the English version, the Maori were to “cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty.” In the Maori translation, composed by a British missionary, they were not to give up sovereignty, but governance. They thought they were getting a legal system, but keeping their right to rule themselves. That’s not how it turned out, and generations later the issues around the meaning of this treaty are still being worked out. 1

A bad interpretation or translation may bring about anything from mistaken assumptions in a business agreement, misapplication of medical treatments putting into risk someone’s life, as well as many other sorts of conflicts that can lead to legal consequences.

My advice to translators and interpreters, especially to those who want to start a career in the translation/interpretation industry is to get some sort of accreditation or certification so that you can be provided documentation that supports that you have the skills required to translate or interpret professionally. Gaining experience (‘voluntary’ translations are a good way to start off) is also very important, and, as in any other field, keep learning! As a golden rule, please remember that interpreters and translators should always be impartial and faithful to the original text or speech; they ought to be restricted to the translation or interpretation of the speaker’s words, no more, no less. At all times, follow the Code of Ethics.  My purpose here is not to discourage anyone, but to encourage translators/interpreters to be highly competitive; emphasizing, once again, how important it is to always work with professional translators and interpreters and therefore, increase your chances of success.