Argentina’s national team did very well and reached the World Cup final with a convincing 3-0 win over Croatia, the reigning runners-up to the world champion. Led by captain Lionel Messi, Argentina’s win was never in doubt. In celebration of the win, team Argentina tweeted a post in several languages to announce their ascent to the world’s biggest sports event.
๐ฎ๐น Siamo finalisti
๐ต๐น Somos finalistas
๐บ๐ธ We are finalists
๐ซ๐ท Nous sommes finalistes
๐ฉ๐ช Wir sind Finalisten
๐ณ๐ฑ Wij zijn finalisten
ืื ืื ื ืืืืจืื๐ฎ๐ฑ
ูุญู ุงูู ุชุฃูููู ููุชุตููุงุช ุงูููุงุฆูุฉ ๐ธ๐ฆ
๐จ๐ณ ๆไปฌๆฏๅณ่ต้ๆ
๐ฏ๐ต ็งใใกใฏใใกใคใใชในใใงใ๐ฆ๐ท Muchaaaaachos… ๐ถ pic.twitter.com/GE1w8e4yqQ
โ Selecciรณn Argentina ๐ฆ๐ท (@Argentina) December 13, 2022
Unfortunately for Argentina, they decided to use machine translation (MT) for the tweet. The Hebrew text was mistranslated to ืื ืื ื ืืืืจืื, which translates to WE ARE FINISHED in English. Which is the exact opposite of what they wanted to say.
This is yet another example of a funny translation which makes the publisher (team Argentina in this case) look foolish.
There is a lesson in this for everyone. Don’t rely on MT for anything important. If you do use MT, give it to a professional linguist for review before using it in a public forum.
That is a really funny case, but it really goes to show how unreliable MT can be sometimes no matter how much it has advanced in all these years. But it still is much better than it was like 10 years ago