New Delhi: E-commerce giant Amazon’s online shopping app hilariously mistranslated its premium service ‘Prime’ to ‘pradhan mantri’ (prime minister) and non-Prime members to ‘gair-pradhan mantri sadasya’ in the Hindi version.
Journalist Ashutosh Bhardwaj shared a screenshot of this mistranslation on Twitter Monday and advised Amazon to “hire good translators”.
The mistranslation was on the e-commerce app’s delivery page where a cashback offer read, “Flat 5% vaapis praapt karein Amazon pe ICICI bank credit card pradhan mantri ke sadasyon ke liye (Flat 5% discount on ICICI bank credit card for Prime members).”
The Hindi app of @amazonIN translates Prime and non-Prime member as प्रधान मंत्री and गैर-प्रधान मंत्री सदस्य.
Hire good translators, please! pic.twitter.com/PNwFKSS1Ee
— Ashutosh Bhardwaj (@ashubh) October 5, 2020
However, the app has now corrected the mistake and the word ‘Prime’ appears as is, even in the Hindi version.
Amazon available in 5 Indian languages
Amazon Prime is a paid subscription programme that allows users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at an extra cost to regular Amazon customers. The services include one or two-day delivery options, free music streaming and access to Prime Video — Amazon’s online streaming platform.
The e-commerce company introduced the Hindi version of its shopping app in 2018, and recently also introduced four new regional languages to the app — Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu.
Several other e-commerce websites such as Flipkart and Snapdeal are also available in Indian languages.
This is not the first time that a translation has gone wrong by a prestigious brand.
Earlier this year, a dosa batter company’s translation of dosa batter to ‘Dosa Ballebaaz’ had received funny reactions on Twitter.
In 2014, Snapdeal had added a Hindi-Tamil interface for its non-English speaking users, which had mistranslated many words.
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