It is always a good idea when trying to give someone who speaks a different language a cute little gift that has a saying in their language on it that you get the translation correct. It is especially important when you are dealing with international politics and how touchy politicians can be over something said incorrectly.
However it seems that someone in the U.S. State Department forgot to double check a recently translation that was used to engrave a special little gift Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave to her Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
“I would like to present you with a little gift that represents what President Obama and Vice President Biden and I have been saying and that is: ‘We want to reset our relationship and so we will do it together,’” Clinton said, presenting Lavrov with the red button.
What the foreign minister got, however, was a button that said “peregruzka,” which translates into Russian as “overcharge” or “overload” (depending on the context). Oops…
“You got it wrong,” Lavrov teased Clinton, but said he would put it on his desk anyway.
Source: ABC News – Political Radar Blog
As Zoli Erdos suggested on his blog maybe next time instead of using a human translator they just farm it out to Google Translate
[Clinton/Lavrov picture courtesy of ABC News / Google Translate graphic courtesy of Zoli Erdos]
