
IBM's “Think” Motto in Chinese - mcenedella
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=30306
======
paulgerhardt
The origin of the phrase is like something out of Lewis Sinclair's Babbitt.

In 1911 on a rainy morning, TJ Watson met with __the advertising and sales
teams __at the National Cash Register Corporation (pre-IBM). Frustrated by the
lack of new submissions Watson went into a tirade:

    
    
      The trouble with every one of us is that we don't THINK enough. We don't get paid for working
      with our feet - we get paid for working with our heads. Feet can never compete with brains. 
      Thought has been the father of every advance since time began.
    
      Knowledge is the result of thought, and thought is the keynote of success in this business, 
      or in any business.
    
      Any man on the selling force today could make two dollars where he now makes one, if he would 
      but THINK along the right lines. 
      It is our job to help the man in the field think right. It is our job to place make them 
      think about what a Cash Register will do for them. 
    
      'I didn't think', has cost the world millions of dollars.
    
      Mr. Olwell, I wish you would have a big placard made with that word Think on it in bold letters, 
      and have it on the wall of this department tomorrow morning. I suggest also that we adopt the 
      word Think as a motto or slogan, keeping it before us at all times in as many different 
      ways as we can.
    

THINK is the original ABC. Think Alec Baldwin spittling on a bunch of sales
guys not meeting their numbers in Glengarry Glen Ross and you've got it. It's
not some lofty command to invent the future. It's an order to close more
sales.

A year later, Watson was convicted of anti-competitive sales tactics and
sentenced to a year in prison. Two years after that he was fired from the
National Cash Register Corporation and went to join IBM.

~~~
holografix
Unbelievable, this is why I love HN! I used to work at IBM and spent a lot of
my time automating stuff and doing BI in cognos and db2. There was so much
inneficiency, so much manual work.

I remember being quite proud of coming up with a new report or some vba script
to automate something.

I felt like I was one of the few actually "thinking"!

Later I realised that most people weren't interested in doing a better job,
their sole focus was in protecting their job! The naïveté of youth!

------
simias
I'm actually surprised by the french translation too. THINK sounds like an
injunction, PENSONS sounds a bit mild and passive in comparison. I think you
can say to somebody in english "Come on, think!" when you want them to
understand or realize something but I'd never say "Allez, pense!" in french
for this.

"Penser" in french has often (but not always) more to do with remembering
things than actually gaining a deeper understanding. "Pense à acheter du lait"
would be "Don't forget to buy some milk".

I think "RÉFLÉCHISSONS" might be a bit closer to what the english THINK evokes
for me. But then again I'm not a native english speaker so maybe I read a
little too much into this.

~~~
scrollaway
Well, hmm, I wouldn't really say that. You can put it as, "Pensons aux
victimes de la guerre." => "Let's think about the victims of war".

"Think of the children!" => "Pensez aux enfants!"

I don't know chinese, but if 认为 translates to "consider", it could work in
that context. "Consider the children."; "Consider the victims of war".

Maybe it's hard to associate it with that meaning because of subconscious
association with Apple's "Think different", which is definitely closer to
"Imagine".

~~~
wux
FWIW, 认为 translates to "consider" for only some values of "consider." An
excessively literal character by character rendering of 认为 would be "recognize
(sth.) as" (but without necessarily the excessively formal connotations of
"recognition"). It'd be a suitable translation for "consider" in a sentence
such as "I consider children to be brats." However, an exhortation such as
"Consider the children!" would not be translated using 认为.

------
yakult
I think the closest Chinese translation to IBM's 'Think' is actually Lenovo's
Chinese name - 联想. In other words, IBM got scooped three decades ago.

------
jcao219
Yeah, this post is entirely correct.

A good example of the connotation of "认为" is "think" as in, "I thought you
would have hired a better translator, IBM."

~~~
Gigablah
The nuance is different. It's "I think..." as in "My opinion is..." or "I
reckon...". For that sentence you'd probably use 以为 instead, with the
connotation of missed expectations.

------
cilea
"认为" can also be interpreted as making assumptions.

I'd use something more catchy such as "思通ハ達" :-)

~~~
baobrain
Agreed. Your example is great because it's a play on the common idiomatic
expression "四通八达" (for the non-chinese reader, this loosely means "accessible
from everywhere), plus 4 character expressions are much more catchy.

Surprised that nobody at IBM thought of it.'

Edit: clarification

~~~
Gigablah
Plus it has an 8 in it :)

------
pxue
I propose "思索". It means "think, search for a solution"

------
natch
Sikao (思考), one of the mentioned suggestions, feels decent for this (non
native speaker though... would not trust myself on this). Xianyixiang feels
too light hearted especially given the mood conveyed by the purposeful
uppercasing of the original. Renwei seems like a really bad choice, in any
case.

------
raister
IBM's motto in Brazil is "Think", they didn't bother to translate it... Like
the french, it would be "Pense" (imperative form), or "Pensez" in french, or
"Pensemos" (let's think), in french "Pensons". Interesting and fascinating.

~~~
edblarney
The work 'think' in English can often represent something deeper, as in 'think
as if to contemplate' \- not just 'think of the children' or 'think about it'.

In French 'pense' really is the later. It doesn't have that reflective
connotation that can be applied to it.

~~~
lobster_johnson
Which is interesting, since the English "pensive" (being engaged in deep
thought) comes directly from French "penser". The parent Latin word also means
to consider or weigh (which also gave us "pension", essentially payment by
weight).

------
CoolGuySteve
An arguably better word in English and French would be
CONCENTRATE|CONCENTRONS. The act of deeply focusing on something.

But I guess they nixed that one after considering how their adding machines
were used by the Nazis.

------
wb14123
I think "求索" would be great. Which is from the famous ancient poem
"路漫漫其修远兮，吾将上下而求索". Which means there are too many things to do and they are
not easy but I will continue to work that out.

------
rabboRubble
My first attempt was 想起來. Happily this is fairly close to where the author
ended up. I think the author's suggestion is slightly better than mine. The
other possibilities higher in the article were plain weird.

------
yyhhsj0521
How about "谋"? More "take things into consideration".

~~~
footpath
谋 is more like "strategize" and "scheme" than "think", there's a certain
connotation associated with it that limits its scope.

Both 思量 and 考虑 as suggested in the blog do not work too well as mottos, I
feel, as they lack in simplicity and elegance and work better as part of a
complete sentence. 思考 is OK, but just 思 (as mentioned in one of the blog
comments) could be even better.

------
qwrusz
This article totally misses how brands and slogans are translated into
Chinese. Accuracy in translation is important but is often superseded by other
decisions. _The right word is not necessarily the most accurate word._

Company budgets to translate a slogan can be in the millions of dollars, and
the process takes months, for a reason. Major mistakes have been made.

Nike and Mcdonald's are well-known for mistakes translating their respective
slogans in China [1]. Coke-Cola got things right (way back in the 1920's too!)
but still famously got hurt in translation [2].

I don't know the details behind IBM's translation of "Think" here. I agree
with the article the translation in the picture "认为" Rènwéi is not a 100%
accurate translation of the original use of "Think" by Watson.

But a few things to consider and speculate on:

This is a picture of the IBM France office. Why is Chinese even on the wall in
France. How seriously was this planned.

IBM has used different translations in the past. Like "Siwei". Why might it
have changed.

When translating to Chinese how a word will sound makes a big difference.
Often how a word sounds in Chinese is treated as more important than its
definition. Seriously. For extreme examples see "ba" and "si". ba is good but
si is not so avoid it [8]. Did the sound of "Renwei" over the sound of other
words like "Siwei" play a factor in the decision? Maybe. I don't know...

Renwei spelled "认为" sounds like the word Renwei spelled as "人为". That word's
meaning is associated with "man-made", "human effort" and "artificial". Also
"renwei" is in the phrase "以人为本" or "yi ren wei ben" which means something
like "putting people first". This is a phrase already loved and adopted by
other companies (VW) and more importantly by the PRC government. Might IBM
have wanted employees to read and understand the word "Think" but also wanted
these other associations of Renwei? Who wouldn't want associations like a
company that cares about its people...or a place where humans are "making"
products like "artificial" intelligence...or a phrase where IBM can thank
Chinese government officials for the inspiration...plus is still does mean
"Think".

Speaking of the government, might there have been government pressure for IBM
not to use corporate propaganda that could be interpreted as encouraging
employees to think in a way that challenges everything or is disruptive
thinking. Maybe a safer choice of "think" was to use a more "accepting" of
what you are told definition of think...

Lastly, Thomas Watson specifically said he didn't want to define what THINK
means, every and all interpretations counted, THINK is just some letters and
employees need to learn and find out what THINK means to IBM and to them.

The translation could have been random or mistake or intentional. Pretty clear
you cannot say it is wrong. I respect the article was written by a Chinese
language professor at Penn maybe trying to teach students something about
translation. But many of these students are going out into the business world
and translation in international business does not work how it works in the
Chinese language department of a university. Keep up the good work, but maybe
next time loop in a Wharton professor too before writing something like this.

[1] Nike "Just do it" in China: [http://brandchannel.com/2011/08/01/nike-uses-
localization-an...](http://brandchannel.com/2011/08/01/nike-uses-localization-
and-li-na-to-connect-in-china/)

[1] Mcdonald's "I'm loving it" in China: [https://chinaipr.com/2015/03/15/im-
lovin-it-a-wrong-way-for-...](https://chinaipr.com/2015/03/15/im-lovin-it-a-
wrong-way-for-mcdonalds/)

[2] Coke nailed the translation with "Ke Kou Ke Le" but the company had to
address mistranslations: [http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/bite-the-
wax-ta](http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/bite-the-wax-ta)

[8] "Ba" is the number 8 but "ba" also sounds a bit like "fa" and "fa" has
among its many meanings "to become wealthy". So this basically seems to have
led to a go all out use "ba" and the number 8 as much as possible. When it
comes to translation if a company had a chance to choose a slightly less
accurate word but it contains a "ba" sound, there is a very good chance they
will choose that. "Si" is different story, I won't go into detail, but si
means 4 and also sounds like words associated with death and punishment, in
China avoid "si" and 4 if possible. Tons and tons of examples out there about
how much the sound of a word matters. But the use "ba" and "8" has are the
best:
[http://shanghaiist.com/2016/06/29/lucky_license_plate_backfi...](http://shanghaiist.com/2016/06/29/lucky_license_plate_backfires.php)

