Mrs Vietnam Hoang Thi Yen’s interpreter’s shoddy translation took the blame for the local beauty’s disappointing second-place finish at the Mrs World competition in Vung Tau last week.

After beating out contestants from Poland, India and Brazil in the semifinal swimsuit, evening gown and traditional costumes competitions, Yen sailed into the last round with US contender and professional model Andrea Robertson and Mrs Russia Victoria Radochinskaya.

Yen, director of UBV branch in Ho Chi Minh City, lost her poise during the final question and answer round.

Asked “why were you chosen?” she spoke without confidence and meandered off topic by saying that the pageant gave Asian married women a chance to step out of the kitchen and raise their voice on behalf of the international women’s community.

But it was her interpreter’s narrow English idiolect and woolly translation that sealed Yen’s fate, according to media critics.

Audiences said that if she had had a better interpreter, she would have won.

Viewers complained that while the organizers had selected the charming and English-fluent beauty queen Ngo Phuong Lan to host the show, they had failed to pick an able interpreter for Yen.

Additionally, many wondered why Yen did not answer in English, as she had spent weeks training with foreign teachers before the pageant.

Yen’s confused Q&A was not the first by a Vietnamese representative at an international beauty contest.

While never failing to match their counterparts in appearance, figure or charm, critics say Vietnamese beauty queens often stumble when it comes time to articulate in English.

With Yen lost in translation, it was public relations executive Victoria Radochinskaya, 30, who emerged victorious over the seventy-five other candidates to become 2009’s Mrs World.

Mrs World is a competition for married women only.

VietNamNet/Thanh Nien/Tuoi Tre