Recently I posted about a useful new category that was added to the list of categories available for local guides to categorize places on Google Maps: Vehicle wrapping service. At the time I wrote that post, only the English term was published already - the translated versions typically show up a couple of weeks later.
By now, the category is also available in all other languages I checked, and in most of them that translation seems to be fine (i.e. when you google that specific term, the image search results on the first page show exactly what you expect - try e.g. the German Fahrzeugfolierer or the French service d’habillage de véhicules). But not in all cases - which is unfortunately not the first time, as I have demonstrated in earlier posts.
In Dutch the translation will almost certainly cause more confusion than information: service voor het inpakken van voertuigen. The problem is the use of the word “inpakken”. This is actually a perfect translations for the English word “wrapping”… if you refer to gift wrapping. In the context that is meant here (covering the car or part of it with a vinyl sticker) the English term is left untranslated in Dutch. Those businesses simply call it car wrapping or carwrappen (in 1 word, with the -en at the end being the default ending for verbs in Dutch) on their website and quite often have wrap somewhere in their business name. When used in the context of vehicles, the word inpakken typically refers to stacking luggage in it.
My suggestion here would therefore be to change the Dutch translation from service voor het inpakken van voertuigen into service voor het wrappen van voertuigen.
By way of illustration: here are the first 2 lines of picture search results for the Dutch term “auto’s inpakken” (literal translation of “to wrap cars”)
And this is what you get when searching for “carwrappen” (with the -en at the end more or less forcing only results in Dutch to come back)
Rant mode off
[UPDATE 05/02/2022]
When checking the notification I just received about the approval of a pending category edit, I noticed that the category term in Dutch has been changed to “Autobestickering”, which is indeed much better. Thanks @Anonymoususer1 Maps team for making the change!
