Sick. Stoked. Snowboarding. The three words tend to go together in some countries. The winter sport has a lot of its own vernacular – “sick” can mean great, and “stoked” can mean “feeling good.” But, when Sage Kotsenburg won the Gold Medal for snowboarding in the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, that’s not what Russian listeners heard.

USA Today’s sports blog, For The Win, explained that the interpreters at the event were struggling to find the right word to translate “stoked,” as Sage got up to receive the medal and invoked the confusing snowboarder slang on the podium. They decided on the Russian equivalent for “under the fly,” which can sometimes mean “under the influence of alcohol.”

This reminds us of the fact that many words and terms really don’t have a direct equivalent in other languages, especially when it comes to slangs and colloquialisms. So how did spectators, athletes and businesses navigating the nuances of different languages, so they could immerse themselves in the Olympics this year?

In part, technology seems to be the answer – and a reminder that the Internet is the most important place for translations today. So how are people dealing with language barriers during the Olympics? And what can companies learn from their methods? More.

See: Business 2 Community

Related Translation News articles:

• The role of language services in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics
• Brand videos and language at the Olympics
• US gold medalist’s ‘stoked,’ ‘sick,’ technical lingo lost in translation?
• Huh? Que? Was? Interpreting at the Olympics

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