When a lack of translation services sparked an outrage

This recent story is a one that highlights perfectly the need for professional translation services and localisation services when you are not familiar with the native language of the country you are operating in. Without the use of some sort of translation service, mistakes are likely to be made and it could result in having a comical effect like seen here, causing misunderstandings much like our previous reported story or even worse cause offence. Sadly the latter is exactly what happened to this restaurant owner in South Carolina, USA.

With all the issues and outrage surrounding immigration and migrants in the midst of Donald Trump’s presidential reign of the US, restaurant owner Sook “Sue” Shin unbeknownst to her had somehow managed to get herself and her restaurant involved into these political debates. Sue was just on the lookout for some new employees of the restaurant when she claims she came across a “help wanted” sign on eBay little did she know that this same sign would later make her restaurant go viral and not for any good reasons.

You see the help wanted sign she purchased had the phrase printed underneath “Minorities need not apply” in plain English along with a Spanish translation. With echoes of President Trump’s election campaign as you could imagine this didn’t go down well with the locals as one customer took a photo of the sign and posted it on Facebook, which of course sparked a massive backlash from the locals to ‘boycott’ the restaurant along with the apparently ‘racist’ owners.

But Sue quickly moved to take down the signs and put up a note to apologise wholeheartedly for any offence caused. Sue a Japanese native explained that English is not her first language, nor her husbands who is Korean and that she did not fully understand what the message had meant. This was further backed up by Melonie Henderson, an employee of two years who said “They thought it meant minors, not minorities,” she than went on to stress that Sue herself is a minority as well as the employees who work there.

Sue had also had to change her voicemail message to explain the situation and again apologise since they were getting abusive phone calls throughout the day. Despite Sue’s best efforts at reconciliation one regular customer of African-American ethnicity explained she was not comfortable eating at the restaurant after this incident. But it now seems that business has been getting back to normal as most customers have acknowledged this simple misunderstanding.

A simple misunderstanding it may be but due to the current political climate along with the migrant scepticism, you can’t help but think this could have all been avoided through a simple translation service. This incident could have major ramifications for the restaurants future due to an innocent mistake on something as menial as a help wanted sign. Or maybe not, but one thing is for sure if you are not fluent in the native language, seek professional services whether it is English, French, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese translation services. Let this be a lesson to all businesses around the world.