IEM Katowice: lost in translation

Intel Extreme Masters Katowice (IEM Katowice), held over the weekend on March 14 to 16, 2014, was a hotly anticipated event, drawing up to 150,000 viewers. And for the $150,000 dollars given as prize money to the winning teams, we certainly received matches as good as the prize money.

Three European (Fnatic, Gambit Gaming, and Millenium), two Chinese (Team WE and Invictus Gaming), one Taiwanese (Azubu Taipei Assassins), one Korean (KT Rolster Bullets), and one North American team (Cloud 9) took part in IEM Katowice, with KT Rolster Bullets taking the cup.

But while the tournament provided a great show, the translators were awful. The whole point of an international event is to get a grasp on the teams’ level of play and how they match up against the other international teams. After the games, one of the players from the winning team (or both teams) are called on stage for a quick interview with emcee Sjokz (Eefje Deeportere) and a translator (if necessary). Of course, the Korean team KT Rolster Bullets and the Chinese teams needed that translator. Unfortunately, the translators proved to be inadequate for their job and many times, mistranslated the questions. Therefore, either the question or the answer was changed.

The worst case of this came from the interview with Insec of KT Rolster Bullets. When Sjokz asked what his impression of Millenium was, the translator asked, “You prepared a lot. What do you think of Millenium.” Not a bad translation at all. However, the worst part came right after. When Insec answered

“I just thought of Millenium as an NA team with nothing special. So we just prepared generally for them.”

The translator translated:

“They’re a really good european team, and kind of prepared for [strategies?] for them.”

Wow. Nothing from Insec’s sentence was translated correctly aside from the words “team” and “prepared”. Sjokz then asked: “They had a first pick Lulu, then you replied with Sivir and Elise. How important was that pick for you guys?”

The translator asked Insec:

“They first picked Lulu, then you picked Sivir and Elise. Is that something you prepared?”