Anthem gaffe 'lifted Croatia' on Wednesday night at Wembley

[Peter C]

Anthem gaffe 'lifted Croatia'
By Frank Keogh

Croatia rose to the occasion in their crucial Euro 2008 defeat of England - after an apparent X-rated gaffe by an English opera singer at Wembley.

Tony Henry belted out a version of the Croat anthem before the 80,000 crowd, but made a blunder at the end.

He should have sung 'Mila kuda si planina'
(which roughly means 'You know my dear how we love your mountains').

But he instead sang 'Mila kura si planina'
which can be interpreted as 'My dear, my penis is a mountain.'

Now Henry could be one of the few Englishmen at the Euro 2008 finals in Austria and Switzerland as Croatian fans adopt him as a lucky omen.

They believe his mistake relaxed their chuckling players, who scored an early goal in the 3-2 win that put Croatia top of the group and knocked out England.

The singer, who hails from St Albans in Hertfordshire but now lives in Inverness, Scotland, has performed at stadiums around the world.

He was once known as the Voice of Arsenal after Gunners fans were impressed with his rendition of Abide with Me before the FA Cup final in 2003 at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

Henry came unstuck when he sung Lijepa Nasa Domovino (Our Beautiful Homeland) at a rain-swept Wembley on Wednesday night.

"I can't even defend myself at the end of the day. It was apparently the last line on the second verse which I made the mistake on," he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"Coming to Wembley and the stadium, it must have got to me, is all I can say.

"It was the last thing that I would intentionally do, and all I can say is if I have offended any Croatians, then they have my deepest apologies."
   
The Croatians have invited him to sing at Euro 2008

Henry's agent Douglas Gillespie said "On the contrary, Henry is becoming a cult hero in Croatia, but denies he played a part in England's exit."

"I can't take the blame for that. The last thing I would do is brag about my parts like that - especially to make it so public," said Henry.

BBC TV presenter Adrian Chiles, whose mother is Croatian, acknowledged the language could pose problems.

"As a speaker of poor Croatian, I have a proud record of getting things calamitously wrong," said the Match of the Day 2 host.

"My personal best was telling a campsite owner that I had a small rat (mali stakor) rather than small tent (mali shator). However, Tony's put all my lifetime's efforts into the shade now."

Zeljka Tomljenovic, secretary of the British-Croatian Society, added: "I don't envy the guy at all because the pronunciation is so difficult.

"He had a big challenge, to sing the national anthem in a language he knows, I assume, nothing about."

Henry's agent Douglas Gillespie said it was a genuine mistake, but admitted the publicity could boost his career.

"He's been given the lyrics correctly, but he has enough trouble with English, never mind Croatian," joked Gillespie.

"There were 80,000 people in the crowd and millions of people watching. It was just the pressure of the moment.

"He did sing it very well and made a very, very small mistake for someone doing his best and singing in a language that is alien to him. If you've ever tried to speak Croatian, it's very difficult.

"The Croatians think it's great, and they've invited him to come over and sing at Euro 2008, and asked if he will be their mascot."

[Der Echte]

Mondo Cool! What a misfortune, the mistake. It is so easy to do something like that unintentionally and unknowingly. I did something like that in Korean once. England losing because of the gaffe is like a lot of my excuses for losing points in TT matches. It was nice for the Croatians to be understanding. They could have been rightiously insulted and upset. They also probably would have had a different attitude about it if they lost the match.

I can personally tell you all that Korean is even worse and you REALLY have no clue when you mess up. I once saw an attractive outfit on a young women (back in the 80s) and tried to say Bo-gi ga Jo-ah-yo. That means (Your outfit) looks good. What I said was Bo-Ji ga Jo-ah-yo. That means "You have good vagina" which, needless to say, earned me a close-up, firsthand demonstration of Taekwondo I will never forget.

[Peter C]

So, would it be fair to say you both got a kick out of it? or two? or three? or more?

[priior]

if a language wants to make crude words sound very similar to non crude words.. its not ur fault mate!

[Peter C]

A few more lost in translation examples

Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing corporations. It shouldn't be that hard, yet even the big multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural differences. For example...

1) The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth."

2) In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead."

3) Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."

4) The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem - Feeling Free," got translated in the Japanese market into "When smoking Salem, you feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty."

5) When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that "no va" means "it won't go." After the company figured out why it wasn't selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe.

6) Ford had a similar problem in Brazil when the Pinto flopped. The company found out that Pinto was Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals". Ford pried all the nameplates off and substituted Corcel, which means horse.

7) When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." However, the company mistakenly thought the spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that "It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

8) An American t-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of the desired "I Saw the Pope" in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato."

9) Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," got terribly mangled in another Spanish translation. A photo of Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a caption that explained "It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused."

10) Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French Canada as Gros Jos before finding out that the phrase, in slang, means "big breasts." In this case, however, the name problem did not have a noticeable effect on sales.

11) Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

12) In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.

13) Japan's second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it entered English-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex tours. Upon finding out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company changed its name.

14) In an effort to boost orange juice sales in predominantly continental breakfast eating England, a campaign was devised to extoll the drink's eye-opening, pick-me-up qualities. Hence the slogan, "Orange juice. It gets your pecker up."

[speedplay]

^LOL!

It sure can be fun when people/big corporations makes mistakes like that!

I know that Honda introduced the car Honda Fitta and was about to release it here when they finally realized that fitta is a very rude word for the female genitals here... Made for some funny slogans though :lol: