Lost in Translation

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


This is a few days late, but in the Washington Post last week, Tong Kim had a fascinating article on the ways in which mistranslations and misinterpretations of language led to confusion between the United States and North Korea, during their haggling over the latter’s nuclear program:

For example, the statement issued in Beijing defined the goal of the six-party talks as “the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” which could allow the Pyongyang regime to link inspections in the North to demands that South Korea, as part of the “Korean peninsula,” also be subject to verification — which I’m certain is not what Seoul had in mind. North Korea made a commitment to “abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs” — but its translation used the Korean verb pogi hada, which could be interpreted to mean leaving the weapons in place rather than dismantling them. And what exactly did the United States mean when it agreed to help North Korea obtain a nuclear energy reactor at an “appropriate time”? Somewhere between yesterday and never, no doubt…

The words are hard enough to decipher. They come with traditions, hang-ups and history. Often the North Koreans deliberately choose ambiguous expressions. Until they revealed their alleged possession of nuclear weapons last February, their term for “nuclear deterrent” connoted a “nuclear capability” but didn’t spell that out. It could mean nuclear weapons, or technology, or fissile material or processing facilities — or all of these. To make matters worse, the North’s interpreter repeatedly and incorrectly translated the Korean word for deterrent, okjeryok, as restraint. When pressed about the uranium enrichment program, a North Korean official said that Pyongyang was “bound to produce more powerful weapons than that.” The North Korean interpreter translated the Korean phrase mandlgiro deo itta as “entitled to.” If you’re entitled to do something, you have a right that you may or may not exercise. But the Korean phrase really means that you’re going to do it — not just that you have the option.

In the same edition, the Post‘s Glenn Kessler went through the recent agreement line-by-line, hashing out the various ambiguities in the text. Short version: It turns out there’s a lot more wiggle room—for both North Korea and the United States—then early reports suggested, which doesn’t exactly make one optimistic that this deal will hold.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate