How foreign media translated Trump's 'shithole' comment
It's been a struggle for non-English speaking countries to properly translate the eloquent diction of President Donald Trump. Especially with his strong, stable grasp of the English language.
This week proved quite the challenge with Trump's reported comment Thursday about immigrants from "shithole countries" like Haiti, El Salvador, and those in Africa. The "vulgar language" tends to lose its meaning if directly translated, so foreign media reached for the right way to convey what the American president was really trying to say.
We used Google Translate for the many different takes on "shithole," along with a few translations from different publications.
Here's what we found:
Croatia Vukojebina: Google translates it to "middle of nowhere," although a lot of dictionaries have a more graphic translation, as seen below.
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China Lan guo: "Countries that suck," as Quartz explained.
Taiwan Niao bu sheng dan de guo jia: "Countries where birds don't lay eggs," also from Quartz.
South Korea Go-ji-so-gul: Quartz translates that to "beggars' haunts."
Japan Benjo no yō ni kitanai kuni: "Countries dirty like toilets."
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Italy Cesso di paesi: "Toilet countries," according to PRI.
El Salvador Agujeros de mierda: "F**k holes."
Mexico Países de mierda: "Countries of shit."
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France Pays de merde: "Shit countries."
Canada Trous-a-rats: "Rat holes."
Haiti Trou a merde: "Hole of shit."
Finland Persläpimaat: "Asshole countries," according to The Washington Post.
Germany Drecksloch: "Sinkhole."
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Israel M’churban: "Crappy or shitty."
Netherlands Achterlijke landen: "Backwards," as PRI translates it.
Iran Chaah-e mostarah: "Toilet hole countries," PRI says.
Other publications, like the Vatican newspaper, L‘Osservatore Romano, just avoided the curse word altogether -- no translation needed.
Topics Donald Trump Politics
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
