McDonald's Releases Unfortunately Named 'Yucky' Burger In Japan

Joanna Fantozzi|

Some menu translations are hilarious, but others will significantly hurt your business. McDonald's Japan has recently introduced its Yakkii Burger, referring to the popular Japanese dish known as shogayaki or ginger pork — shoga is pork, and yaki means "grilled" or "fried." The only problem? "Yakkii" sounds an awful lot like "yucky" in English, which makes for a not-so-appetizing menu item.

Here it gets a little tricky. According to Kotaku, people are translating "yakkii" as "mazui," which means "very unappetizing." Even worse, McDonald's is writing the name of the burger using katakana — the characters specifically used for foreign words. So the translation pretty much is yucky phonetically in Japanese.

The actual "burger" looks like a thin fried pork patty topped with soggy lettuce. In other words, McDonald's' unfortunate nomenclature just may fit the bill.

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