Volvo’s got a car called the “Recharge” At least in Portuguese it does.
Isn’t that rather reinforcing range anxiety in potential buyers?
Reminds of the problems Chevy had selling the Nova in Iberian speaking countries. Nova or No Va?
Volvo’s got a car called the “Recharge” At least in Portuguese it does.
Isn’t that rather reinforcing range anxiety in potential buyers?
Reminds of the problems Chevy had selling the Nova in Iberian speaking countries. Nova or No Va?
If you’re stupid enough to buy an electric car it follows that range anxiety will only appear after the purchase.
Might need to also get a Dodge Charger to use for those long journeys.
Volvo means I roll so perhaps HocEstQuam. – this is how I roll?
The world of cars is famously full of this stuff. The Mitubishi Pajero was renamed Shogun in any Spanish-speaking or adjacent country as ‘pajero’ sounds like the Spanish word for ‘wanker’. The Toyota MR2 was renamed the MRS in French speaking markets as ’emm-err-deux’ sounds like ’emmerdeur’ (Fr. for ‘shitter’). And Rolls Royce was a long way down the road with the Silver Mist model before someone noticed that ‘Mist’ is German for ‘fart’
Doesn’t seem to have harmed Smeg products much, in Anglo Saxon countries, beyond a bit of childish sniggering
“Reminds of the problems Chevy had selling the Nova in Iberian speaking countries. Nova or No Va?”
Like most such memes that pervade the net – including Pajero, Schitt et al- it turns out not to be true. Yet it persists
It was part of a very good stand up set by a Mexican American comedian. I’m sticking with it.
I believe Schwarzkopf cosmetics were originally marketed as “Blackhead” in the UK.
But that’s probably an urban myth too.
‘Like most such memes that pervade the net – including Pajero, Schitt et al- it turns out not to be true. Yet it persists’
It shocks me how much ‘debunking’ turns out to be not true.
I lived in Pheonix, AZ in the 90s and personally remember myself and other Spanish speakers sniggering at the radio as ‘El No Va’ (it doesn’t go) was advertised in the loudest, boldest radio voice by some Texan who obviously just read his ad lines however they were given to him. They read the script in English then the same thing in Spanish and it ended just like that above.
They had to change the name to Volvo, since it wasn’t selling in San Francisco.
And Rolls Royce was a long way down the road with the Silver Mist model before someone noticed that ‘Mist’ is German for ‘fart’
I’m not sure where they got fart from but in the dictionaries I use the formal definition is:
“Mist noun, masculine
manure n (agriculture) (often used)
Mist ist ein natürlicher Dünger. Manure is a natural fertilizer.”
Which as in English gets used a colloquialism:
“Mist noun, masculine [colloq.]
crap n [colloq.] [vulg.]
Du solltest Menschen meiden, die Mist über dich reden. You should avoid people who talk crap about you.”
Whether RR would worry about every single colloquialism is another matter, but I’d have thought the translation of manure was bad enough.
“And Rolls Royce was a long way down the road with the Silver Mist model before someone noticed that ‘Mist’ is German for ‘fart’“
They were beaten to it by the Ford Corsair.
GM ( as in Opel & Vauxhall ) realy did have to change the name. The Nova became the Corsa.
Wouldn’t want a nova anyway.. They suddenly inflate, explode, then leave some hot remains behind.
I had a Chevy Nova back in the ‘70s. They were pretty common if not very good. I had to have its windscreen replaced once while in Mexico. No one at the shop made any sort of a big deal about the name. I heard the guy on the phone simply call for a windscreen for a “Chevy Nova”, with the CH being hard and the v in Nova sounding a bit like a b. Mine wasn’t the only one I saw on the road there. So this was, in fact, something of an urban legend, but perhaps a comic did make a routine out of it.
It’s about the stresses as much as anything. “No va” is stressed on the second syllable, “nova” on the first.
The equivalent would be something like saying that “notable” implies “no table”
Furthermore, Pemex, the Mexican gasoline company, used to sell a brand of unleaded called “Nova”, which implies that a Spanish speaker does not see the word “nova” and conclude that it means “no va”
Dio, the Pajero meme is true. Anyway I once built a kit-car called the Ford Pubic, because it was made out of old corsaires…
Schiit Audio do in fact exist and make some excellent products, particularly for headphones enthusiasts
I do sometimes wonder what KFC Legend burgers are made of.
‘It’s about the stresses as much as anything. “No va” is stressed on the second syllable, “nova” on the first.’
Right, the astrological term nova comes from Latin, it means the same thing in Spanish as English. How it’s said matters, as you said.
But running ads that literally and practically translate to ‘Come buy this car, it doesn’t go’ is a thing that happened.
It’s hard to convey the Texan car hustler radio accent on text. Perhaps other parts of that dealerships ads would help. The dealer bragged they gave the best deals in Pheonix ‘and that ain’t no bull!’, the meaning is clear to all here I’m sure. Then they ran the same ad in Spanish with the same non Spanish speaking announcer saying :’este no es una* torro’, literally ‘that is not a bull.’.
The ads ran long enough and to a wide enough audience I’m not surprised some comedians picked up on it. As far as I know those ads are the whole story, but they certainly ran and sounded even more absurd than I can describe here.
Mind the whole shebang was pretty absurd even in English. They kept an actual bull at the dealership and ran gimmicks all the time.
*Yes it should be uno, I distinctly remember una because we laughed about that too. The idea of a female bull was a joke back then, not just everyday normal language.
I can’t find a record of the ‘El no va’ radio ad in particular, but this is the auto group that ran the ads:
https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/2020/04/19/tex-earnhardt-obituary-founder-car-dealership-empire-dies-89/5162106002/
You can get the picture pretty easily I think. They seem like good guys, but their ads were not always thought through even in English. Their auto group covered enough regions of the US that I can easily see their sillyness becoming iconic and part of a comics gig somewhere entirely different.