Articles and Stories

July 28, 2016

Even a black eye is not a black eye in other countries.

In France we add some butter when you hit someone in the eye; we say that you ‘have an eye in black butter’ = avoir un œil au beurre noir

When you hit someone elsewhere, like in the leg, arm, etc. you ‘have a blue’ = avoir un bleu

In China, when a person is badly beaten on the face, we say that this person is beaten to ‘biqing lianzhong,’ which means you have a ‘dark blue nose and a swollen face.’

In Hindi you do not have a black eye, instead you have a ‘swollen eye’; a color does not identify the bruise in your face.

In Germany, you do not have a black eye instead you have a blue eye, ‘ein blaues Auge.’
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The Koreans are torn between a black and a blue eye, they say “your eye is bruised DARK BLUE” (눈에 퍼렇게 멍이 들었다).

In Poland, you have a ‘podbić oko’, which is very hard to translate, as ‘podbić’ has numerous meanings in Polish. The meaning is between a ‘stamped eye,’ where stamped can be understood as to make a mark under something, in this case the eye, but it is also used to stamp a document, like a passport etc., and ‘eye beaten up.’ No color is used in Polish.

These differences show how important it is to hire a professional translator native to the target country and language so that you do not receive a translation where a black eye turned into an eye in black butter or any other example as listed above.