The Mistranslated Menu: When You Order Fish and Get Custard
9th September 2025
You sit down in a bustling restaurant abroad. The menu is full of promise. You scan the options and, with confidence, order the dish described as “roasted fish with creamy sauce.”
What arrives is not fish. Nor is it particularly creamy. Instead, a wobbling bowl of cold custard is placed before you.
It is a comic moment on holiday, but in market research, such mistranslations are no laughing matter.
The Menu Problem in Research
Menus are promises – descriptions that set expectations. So too are surveys. Each question is a “menu item” that tells the respondent what is being asked of them.
If that question is mistranslated, even slightly, the respondent may end up answering something different to what the researcher intended. Just as ordering fish but receiving custard ruins the meal, mistranslated surveys ruin the data.
The Danger of False Confidence
The trickiest thing about a mistranslated menu is that it looks convincing. “Fish with creamy sauce” seems clear enough until the dish arrives.
Survey translations can suffer the same fate:
- The words appear accurate on the surface.
- The phrasing seems acceptable.
- Yet the meaning underneath has drifted.
Respondents, like diners, proceed with confidence – only to find that the outcome is far from what was intended.
The Hidden Costs of a Wrong Dish
A mistaken order in a restaurant costs you a meal. A mistranslated survey can cost you far more:
- Misleading insights that steer business decisions in the wrong direction.
- Frustrated respondents who disengage because the questions feel unclear or irrelevant.
- Lost credibility when findings do not reflect the true voices of your target audience.
How Foreign Tongues Keeps Your Menu Accurate
At Foreign Tongues, we make sure you always get what you ordered. Our translators:
- Check cultural nuances, ensuring that phrases “taste” the same in every market.
- Adapt idioms and metaphors, so they feel natural, not confusing.
- Preserve intent and tone, so the outcome matches your expectation.
We are, in effect, your menu guardians – making sure that fish remains fish, custard remains custard, and never the wrong way round.
The Lesson of the Menu
In a restaurant, a mistranslated menu can be forgiven. It becomes an anecdote, retold for humour.
But in market research, there is no room for custard when you ordered fish. To get clear, reliable insights, you need a partner who translates with precision, context and cultural care.
After all, your respondents deserve to know exactly what they are being asked.
