Lost in Translation

Jeremy — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:05:03 +0000

Sometimes things just seem to get lost in translation. To help illustrate this point we’ve made a tool that will take any English phrase and translate it to French, German and back to English using the translation tool from BabelFish. Usually you end up with something quite different than you started with. Go ahead and try it out.

You’ll get better results if you avoid contractions and abbreviations

Phrase to Translate

Translated phrase

What we have here, is to be communicated incorrectly.

Here are some common phrases, quotes and song lyrics we’ve “translated” with this tool. See if you can guess what they are.

1. Here, child looks at you.

2. My Chevy has led to the delivery, but the delivery was drying.

3. There is a woman, who knows, everything that sparkling is, but.

4. May is Kraft with you.

5. An eye for eye terminates only to build completely the lamp screen for the world up.

6. Well decree cooperate and hear.

7. They terminated through to know, to go and know to run if they know to hold, if they know to fold, if far, if.

Did you find a funny translation of your own? Share it with us, post a comment. Oh, and you’ll be happy to know that at ReliableWriters, all of our writers live in the US and speak English as their first language.

Just to Help Drive the Point Home

Thank you to Garden Wall Publications for sharing this video in their post The LiverWorst Spoiler in the Whale Wide Word.

Reliable Writers » English

Lost in Translation

Just to Help Drive the Point Home