Monterey Language Services' Blog » soccer tournament https://www.montereylanguages.com/blog Translation reaches every corner of our culture. Our blog shares stories related to translation, culture, language, quality, writing & interpretation through the eyes of translation professionals. Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:36:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.35 Language in the Euro 2012 Championship https://www.montereylanguages.com/blog/language-in-the-euro-2012-championship-1834 https://www.montereylanguages.com/blog/language-in-the-euro-2012-championship-1834#comments Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:30:43 +0000 http://www.montereylanguages.com/blog/?p=1834 The UEFA Euro 2012 tournament is one of soccer’s biggest tournaments. First, all of the nations in Europe go through a qualification process, battling it out in groups until the top 16 teams emerge. When those teams are selected the tournament has officially begun, along with the necessary broadcasts to over 80 different countries around the world, including the United States!

However, we know that 80 different countries doesn’t necessarily mean 80 different languages. In order to reach the intended population the broadcasts have been translated in 203 different languages. This means the translators working the tournament have to be literally perfect, or else things could go horribly wrong as we saw after Croatia’s 3-1 win over the Republic of Ireland Last Sunday.

After the game Croatian striker Mario Mandzukic’s post-match commentary was translated to “I like to jump a lot, this is what I do best.” He then said, “We are jumping well, we are very motivated.” It’s safe to assume this was not what Mandzukic was trying to say. Now his words will be forever lost in translation, in the United States at least.

Now Euro 2012 is halfway through the quarter final stages, which means only a handful of matches remain. Do you think we will witness any more translation problems?

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