VietNamNet Bridge – Serious translation mistakes made by Lai Van Sam, the host of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” television show, at the awards ceremony at the first Vietnam International Film Festival on October 21, have become a hot topic in the country.   

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Lai Van Sam and Ngo My Uyen at the awards ceremony of the Vietnam International Film Festival.

Sam hosted the ceremony with Ngo My Uyen, a former model, actress and now a prestidigitator in the US, who was responsible for English translation.

He was criticized for making “unintelligible and unsuitable” comments at the event, which was participated by many foreign guests.

After announcing the winner for the Best Actress, he asked the audience to clap their hands on the occasion of the Day of Vietnamese Women, which falls on October 20. He made unintelligible comments about the co-host My Uyen and even said that his presence at the ceremony is inappropriate.

Sam was strongly criticized for his wrong translation of the speech by Hong Kong actor Daniel Wu. Though the organizing board arranged translators for the ceremony people didn’t know why Sam volunteered to / stepped in to translate for Daniel Wu. His translation was completely different from what Daniel Wu actually said.

If one googles "MC Lai Van Sam + dich sai" (senior MC Lai Van Sam + wrong translation), over 148,000 pages will show up within 0.50 second.

While many people think that this is an unacceptable mistake of a event-host like Lai Van Sam, others defend him, pointing instead to My Uyen, who speaks English very well, but stood besides Sam doing nothing.

While Sam has not said a word about the incident, My Uyen told an online newspaper that Sam tried to “save” the show so he translated for Daniel Wu, though Sam was in charge of the Vietnamese part only.

“I was very surprised when Sam translated Daniel Wu’s speech because he was in charge of the Vietnamese part. In that circumstance, I could not interrupt him, especially at an event with many foreign guests,” Uyen explained.

According to Uyen, the organizing board arranged French, English, Korean and Chinese translators for the event. Uyen was in charge of English and Sam of Vietnamese..

The script of the awards ceremony was censored and approved by the Vietnam Cinema Agency and the Vietnam Television. Uyen’s English script was also approved by the Foreign Ministry.

“My role that night was very passive. I had to follow the approved script. Sam made last corrections to the script which was then sent to the Foreign Ministry to be translated into English,” Uyen said.

She said that Sam said something that was not in the approved script, and which was only suitable for Vietnamese audience, not foreigners. She didn’t translate these words. People might have noticed that talked less than Sam.

Uyen also said that she fulfilled the task assigned to her by the organizers well.

 “After the show, Sam told me that he knew his translation was wrong,” Uyen said and she respected Sam’s decision.

PV