Few subjects have a more international and Anglicised terminology than sports and sports betting. This often makes it easier to translate texts about sports betting, as many words can remain in their original form, but it also creates the challenge of deciding when to translate a sports betting word and when to leave it in English.
Just for the fun of it, we challenge you to find one “fail” for the translation of the word football.
Argentinian Spanish and Turkish = Futbol
Danish = Fodbold
Dutch = Voetbal
Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese = Futebol
Czech and Romanian = Fotbal
French and British English = Football
German = Fussball
Hindi = फुटबॉल (pronounced phutabola)
Hungarian = Futball
Icelandic = Fótbolti
Norwegian = Fotball
Spanish = Fútbol
Thai = ฟุตบอล (pronounced footbon)
Russian = футбол (pronounced fudbal)
US English = Soccer
If you need a hint you can watch this clip from Green Street Hooligans.
Peculiar Greek ‘ball’ translation
Needless to say, in sports betting translation and localization it’s important to distinguish whether the target group is American, in which case football is soccer. American football is something entirely different, and slightly more violent on average.
American football is still played with a ball though, and this is where the Greeks might get into trouble when they speak English. In Greek, one always uses the translation of the word ‘ball’ in addition to the specification of which ball you are talking about. In the case of ‘football,’ which in English refers to both the sport and the oval ball used in this sport, the Greeks will use ποδόσφαιρο for the sport and μπάλα ποδοσφαίρου for the ball. The later literally means ‘football-ball,’ and the following anecdote is based on a conversation that actually took place:
Greek person: What do you want for your birthday?
Norwegian person: I would like a football.
Greek person: Do you mean a football-ball?
Norwegian person: No, I mean a football.
Greek person: OK…
10 tricky sports betting terms
Are you following so far? Thank God, because now it gets even more trickier. We will mention 10 sports betting terms you should know the meaning of if you are working with sports betting translation:
Parlay/Accumulator
- Spread
- Handicap
- Beeswax/Ajax/Bees
- Overlay
- Proposition bet
- Even money
- Banker
- All-In
- Closing line
When we hire translators at All-In Translations, we always test the sports betting knowledge of all candidates in order to ensure that the successful ones have an excellent understanding of sports betting terminology.
Sports knowledge just as important
In addition to good sports betting knowledge, we prefer to hire translators with good knowledge of sports, as sports betting translation is more often about translating tricky sports terms than tricky betting terms.
Once hired, we encourage and help our translators to become familiar with terms such as the ones below, so that natural flow and precision can be kept. These terms in particular have been carefully selected with the then-upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia in mind.
- Rink
- Luge
- Skeleton
- Halfpipe
- SuperG
- Cross country
- Icing
- Biathlon
- Telemark landing
- Giant slalom
How many of these terms do you know, honestly?
This is also something which is appreciated among our translators. Our German translator provided with this testimonial:
“All-In Translations is very professional. They have clear communication, interesting projects and is a reliable player. Altogether a pleasure to work with.”
Check out more testimonials from our translators.
