Babelfish is one of the worst ways to translate things from Japanese to English, but people still use it all the time. It's the worst because it translates everything absolutely literally so that half the time, everything ends up sounding metaphorical. You open your email and there's this weird poem-like message from the person you met last weekend. You have no idea what the meaning of the message is, but it's still pretty awesome to receive. That's why it's also kind of the best translation method. I'd say that until you have received a weird Babelfish translator message from a new friend, you haven't really experienced living as a foreign person in Japan.
Please allow me to present... the last paragraph of Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech translated from English to Japanese and then back to English by Babelfish.
I today possess dream! I day all valley am noble, clearly be able to do the rough place where all hills and the mountain low speed have the thing dream which is made, you can do the place where it bends straightly; " And the glory of the main thing to make clear, as for all meats that together." You see; this is our desires, thing this where I return to with south is reliance. By this reliance, we the desired stone are cut off from the mountain of despair. With this reliance, we can deform the mismatch which our nations sounds earnestly in the symphony whose same trade union is beautiful. By this reliance, we cooperation, in order to pray together, in order to fight together, in order to do to be imprisoned together in order to protect freedom together, have informed that we are 1 days freely to be possible. And this is day -- As for this day God' It is everything; New meaning you can sing the child of s: My national ' tis of the land where the freedom of thee and thee is sweet, I sing. Pilgrim' My father it died the land somewhere, whether of land; The pride of s, from all hillsides, permit the free ring!PS. The Nintendo picture is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time, and I hope that Tofugu.com won't mind that I put it on my site. The Japanese says, "I can't read!!" for those of you who, uh, can't read it. Please go to Tofugu.com for more funny.
4 comments:
Haha It's funny the number of times you come across those kind of translations and not just from friends. I'm starting to wonder if perhaps all the big corporate companies have taken to using it in order to save money. Just hire a freaking translator! ha
Re tomorrow- was wondering if it's gona work or not? all good if not just thought I would check before making any other plans for the evening?
I understood the "nai" part and that's about it. My kanji knowledge is sucky, to say the least.
Does Babelfish automatically tranlsate emails, or is this a copy-paste thing?
Yeaaahhh, my Kanji knowledge is not great, either. But "read" is one that I know for sure. I can even write "read" in my ugly little scrawl. Ha.
My Japanese co-workers used to use 'excite' and the result was pretty much the same :)
Colleagues would come to me and ask me to translate these 'English' emails into ... English!
Post a Comment