When you think about product safety, you probably think about engineering, materials, and testing. You likely do not think a mistranslated word or label could put someone at risk. Yet language errors in labels, software, and documentation can directly lead to misuse, injuries, recalls, and serious brand damage.
A single unclear instruction can turn safe equipment into a hazard. When people cannot fully understand warnings or directions, they make assumptions to keep work moving. If companies sell products across languages and markets, those assumptions multiply, increasing the risk of error.
This blog walks through three examples that show how translation and labeling failures create real safety risks. Some involve documented incidents, while others reflect common error patterns with proven consequences. Together, they show why translation quality belongs in any serious product safety plan.
In the mid-2000s, a hospital in Épinal, France, changed how it used radiotherapy planning software for cancer treatment. Key operating guidance was not available in French in a form staff could use day to day (see the ASN/IGAS report). Clinicians and technicians still had to operate the system.
To move forward, staff relied on ad hoc workarounds and assumptions. They set critical dose-related parameters incorrectly because of a language and usability gap. A misunderstanding at this step can change the amount of radiation a patient receives.
Over more than a year, multiple patients received severe radiation overdoses during treatment. At least four people died, and many others suffered life-altering injuries. Investigators cited the lack of usable French-language guidance, along with training and process failures, as contributing factors.
If you ship high-tech equipment, you need official translations produced by trained technical translators and a process that treats every menu, warning, and prompt as safety-critical. Professional services can operate within quality systems aligned with ISO 13485:2016, which is widely used in medical device quality management. Put simply, that structure helps keep language clear and consistent so that workers use the equipment as intended.
To further reduce risk, use an in-country review or back-translation to confirm that the meaning remains intact. An in-country review means someone in the target country checks that the wording matches how people actually read and work. Back-translation means translating key text back into the original language to see whether the meaning changed.
This risk also shows up in everyday consumer products, especially items designed for children. Packaging and labels guide how people use a product, so errors can change real behavior. When safety information is unclear, a product can end up in the hands of children too young to use it safely.
In 2022, a children’s “educational computer” toy flagged in the UK became a clear example of this problem. The product was marketed as suitable for “6M+,” which is commonly interpreted as “6 months and older.” UK authorities noted they suspected a translation error and that it should have been “6yr+,” meaning six years and up, in the official UK Product Safety Report for “Educational Computer 6M+” (2209-0211).
An age label looks like a small detail until you consider who will actually use the product. When the label points to younger kids, the safety margin shrinks quickly. If the product also contains small detachable parts, a toy that might be appropriate for an older child can become dangerous for an infant.
Authorities treated the product as a serious choking risk and documented it through the same UK Product Safety Report, with the import rejected at the border. The case showed how a product can create real risk when age markings are mistranslated or misread, because the label can direct a product toward children too young to use it safely.
Now shift from products to patients. Pharmacy labels are short, but the risk is massive because people follow them closely. One word can change what a person puts into their body.
A well-known example involves the English word "once," meaning one time. In Spanish, "once" means the number eleven. When a pharmacy system prints bilingual directions and fails to distinguish the English "once" from the Spanish "once," instructions like "take once a day" can be misread as "take eleven a day." A Spanish-speaking patient could reasonably read it as "take eleven a day," not "take one a day." This kind of overdose can cause severe harm and can be fatal.
This type of error is not a rare quality issue. In a real-world study of pharmacies using machine-generated Spanish medication labels, about half of the translated labels contained at least one error, including potentially dangerous mistranslations like "once a day" being interpreted as eleven times per day. Unreviewed machine translation is a high-risk choice for dosing instructions because lookalike words can carry the wrong meaning. Professional translation helps prevent these errors from appearing on patient-facing labels.
Across these situations, the pattern is consistent. People had to make safety decisions using instructions they could not reliably understand. If you want fewer incidents, you need controls that catch language risk early and consistently. Professional translation services reduce risk through a layered process. The goal is practical: keep the meaning stable across languages, documents, and markets. That stability supports safe use.
An ISO 17100-certified process requires a second qualified linguist to review each piece of text. That review step matters because one person can miss a detail, and a reviewer can catch the word or phrase that changes meaning. Second-person review is a straightforward way to reduce avoidable errors.
ISO 17100:2015 also requires the use of tested and qualified linguists. This standard helps teams follow the same quality steps every time, especially for high-risk content. You get a repeatable process designed to catch mistakes before release.
You do not want a translator guessing at technical terms. You want subject-matter experts (SMEs), meaning people with deep knowledge of your industry, to review key content. For industrial chemicals, this includes people who understand hazards and handling rules, so instructions stay accurate.
SMEs focus on meaning and use, not just word choice. They know which terms cannot change without changing the outcome. SME oversight helps keep technical intent stable across languages.
Consistency matters because inconsistent phrasing forces people to interpret instead of follow instructions. Terminology tools help teams reuse approved wording, so safety messages do not drift over time. These tools support the same safety language across manuals, labels, and updates.
These tools reduce slow drift over time. They also lower the risk of mixing up similar terms, substances, or procedures. Consistency is a practical safety control.
Regulatory expectations change by country, and safety labeling often has strict rules. Native translators familiar with local requirements can review warning symbols, age categories, and required wording to help you avoid fines, blocked shipments, and forced recalls. Local review protects your compliance in each target market.
In-country reviews add another layer of protection. Local experts can flag how a label might be misunderstood in real use, not just how it reads on the page. That is how you catch problems before customers do.
Across these examples, the pattern is consistent. People had to rely on instructions they could not fully or reliably understand. Some examples reflect documented incidents, while others show common translation errors that regularly appear in real-world use. In every case, language played a direct role in how people used products and how risk increased.
Reducing this risk takes more than good intentions or basic translation. Companies need controls that treat language as part of product safety and compliance, not as a final formatting step. Professional translation services support this by applying defined review steps, qualified linguists, and subject-matter oversight to keep meaning stable across languages, documents, and markets.
Translation mistakes are not cosmetic. They can lead to misuse, trigger recalls, and damage trust built over the years. When you build translation quality into your safety plan from the start, you reduce avoidable risk and protect both users and your brand. That is how language stops being a hidden liability and becomes a practical part of safe product design.