In their latest campaign, Columbia Sportswear wants you to be the greatest of all time, or the G.O.A.T. for short. Their French translation, on the other hand, actually wants you to be a goat.
Twitter user Patrice Cinq-Mars came across the clothing company’s ad banners hung up just outside The Bay’s location in downtown Montreal.
He quickly noticed that Columbia had quite literally translated G.O.A.T. to the French word “chèvre,” meaning the animal and not the acronym.
“On The Bay’s building in downtown Montreal, Columbia literally translated ‘Be the goat’ to ‘Soyez la chèvre,’” he wrote. “If by ‘goat’ they mean ‘greatest of all time,’ then let’s just say the translation doesn’t work that well.”
Sur l'édifice du La Baie, au centre-ville de #Montréal, Columbia a littéralement traduit « Be the goat » par « Soyez la chèvre ». Si par « goat » on entend « greatest of all time », mettons que la traduction ne rend pas très bien l'idée...🤨🐐
Naturally, French-speaking Quebecers clowned the failed translation on Twitter.
One user noticed that in to be called a goat in French meant the opposite of what the G.O.A.T. acronym actually meant.
“It’s even funnier when you realize that in French, the saying “be a goat” means the complete opposite,” they wrote.
@patrice5mars C'est encore plus drôle quand on pense qu'en français l'expression "être une chèvre" signifie totalement l'inverse !
Another user tried to figure out how to use the G.O.A.T. acronym in French.
“Gagnant on aime toujours,” they wrote, translating to “Winner we’ll love forever.”
@patrice5mars Gagnant On Aime Toujours
Someone who had been to the Montreal airport recently found a translation blunder.
They took a picture of a vending machine that wrote “Hoboken style baby!” and translated it to “Bébé style Hoboken.” The translation roughly translates to the awkward “Baby style Hoboken.”
@patrice5mars J’ai celui ci à YUL “bébé style Hoboken”
Time will tell if this ad campaign will go down as “le meilleur de tous les temps.”
