Quote of the Moment

You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.
- Leonardo da Vinci

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Playing Telephone With Translators

I have discovered a fun game to play on the Internet. You go to http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr and give the translator a phrase or two to translate from English into the language of your choice from their pull-down menu. When you get the translation, paste it back into the translate window and translate it back into English and see what you get. I then ran some simple phrases back and forth through a few translations, winding my way back to English. I start a full-time summer job on Monday and most of you are probably thinking, "It's about time that woman found something to do with her time."

Enjoy a sample below using Spanish, French and German:

Would you like French fries with that?
Vous aiment des pommes frites avec cela ?
Wurde Sie mögen Pommes-Frites mit dem?
¿Usted tienen gusto de papases fritas con eso?

Vous aiment des pommes frites avec cela?
You like apples fried with that?

Wurde Sie mögen Pommes-Frites mit dem?
Did it become to like Pommes Frites with that?

¿Usted tienen gusto de papases fritas con eso?
You have taste of papases fried with that?

Vous aiment des pommes frites avec cela?
¿Se gusta de las manzanas freír con eso?
It is pleased of apples to fry with that?

2 comments:

Nick Carver said...

While you are screwing around with babelfish, you could be listening to my podcasts.

Ann said...

where are they?