Lost in translation: St. John's airport admits its French needs work

The St. John's International Airport says it needs to do better, after Radio-Canada documented a series of poorly translated signs and messages months after the airport was fined thousands for violating official language requirements.

Lisa Bragg, the airport's vice-president of business development and marketing, acknowledged the airport authority has work to do.

"We make mistakes and all kinds of ways we're going to own them and we're going to fix them as best we can," said Bragg. "It's not that you meant to do it, but there's going to be episodic errors that occur from time to time, and we're not immune to that."

Radio-Canada, the CBC's French-language broadcaster, presented the airport authority with a number of examples of crude translations at the airport, including posters and the airport's website and social media posts. Located in a provincial capital and welcoming more than 1.5 million passengers a year before the pandemic, the airport is required by law to provide both English and French language services to travellers.

In the case of one poster in a bathroom, the play on words "If you're happy and you know it wash your hands" became "Si tu es content et vous le savez, lavez-vous les mains" in French. The joke doesn't make sense in French and the sentence is grammatically incorrect, containing both formal and informal verb tenses.

Another poster read "Regardez-vous, arborant ce masque!", a cringe-worthy translation of, "Look at you, rocking that mask!"

A French tweet from the airport described a new "non-stop road to Toronto-Pearson" ("route sans escale vers Toronto-Pearson"). Another wished passengers a happy Thanksgiving by writing "Joyeux Action de Grâces" instead of "Joyeuse Action de grâces."

'We're trying to be much more conscious'

Bragg said several posters have already been removed, although some tweets hadn't been deleted Tuesday morning. She said the airport authority is "not a huge organization" and that it relies on Halifax-based firm Text in Context for most of its translation. However, in certain cases a library of pre-translated phrases was also used for smaller translation jobs, which led to errors.

"That is, at times, where we've introduced some errors. So we're trying to be much more conscious to make sure and double-check and verify anything where we have," Bragg said. "I'll put it this way: anything where we have to spend money for a sign, for example, that is going to live for a while, we will make sure that the translation is the best it can be."

Bragg said there were fewer travellers in the airport during the pandemic and one of the poorly translated posters was up for more than a year before anyone complained. 

"When it came to our attention, we fixed it immediately. But that also kind of speaks to the fact that we've had less traffic and we have less French-speaking passengers," Bragg said.

"If someone notices something, reach out to the airport. We would be happy, more than happy. We would actually welcome the feedback."

Airport authority fined $11K in April

Radio-Canada documented the bad translations months after the airport authority was ordered to pay $11,000 for violating official language requirements. A Federal Court judge found last April the airport had adopted a too-narrow interpretation of its language obligations by not translating most of its social media posts, as well as its annual reports and press releases. 

The airport authority is appealing the decision, which it feels would expand requirements far beyond their intended purpose.

French not at 'acceptable level'

In a statement, the head of the Newfoundland and Labrador's Francophone federation said bilingual services were "all but absent" a few years ago and that it's important to highlight the major progress made since. But Gaël Cobineau, executive director of the Fédération des francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador, said the airport "has very clear official language obligations and there is still some way to go."

"In the past, we have tried to contact the airport's communications department to discuss this informally and constructively, but we have never heard back from them," said Corbineau.

"In the absence of any direct dialogue, we now report any errors we find by filing complaints with the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, which is quite effective. Many errors have since been corrected, but there are still some and new ones appear over time."

Corbineau said the airport needs to realize it "lacks capacity internally" to communicate in French at an "acceptable level," pointing to several boutiques and restaurants where service in French is often unavailable.

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