People Thought Merkel Was Shading Trump, But She Actually Got Mistranslated

Here's how the English translation on CNN and other news channels carried her remarks:

You are familiar with the American position, you know that unfortunately — and I deplore this — the United States of America left the climate agreement or rather said, announced their intention of doing this.

One word, "deplore", particularly captured the public's imagination.

Hmmmm why does it sound familiar?

Remember this?

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that.

Lots of major media organizations reported the "deplore" line.

Including Washington Post, the BBC, The Guardian, the LA Times, CBS, the Huff Post and CNN (and yes, even the fine publication you are reading).

Here's what she said in her native German:

"Sie wissen, die USA sind bedauerlicherweise aus dem Klimaabkommen ausgetreten – beziehungsweise haben gesagt, dass sie das wollen."

So the word "bedauerlicherweise" is the one that got translated as "deplore" by the translator. Except, it really means "regretfully" or "unfortunately" or "sad to say."

And not, as the G-20 translator said: "You are familiar with the American position, you know that unfortunately, and I deplore this, the United States of America left the climate agreement or rather said, announced their intention of doing this."

A German government official confirmed to Buzzfeed News that the updated translation was correct.

So, long story short: translation is tough, particularly when it's being done live and Merkel isn't actually making deplorable jokes.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯