Excusez-moi, Wo ist el babelfish, signore?
I was messing around with the AltaVista Bablefish program. Bablefish is a Web page that translates from one language to another. It’s especially fun if you take something non-concrete, like lyrics, and put it English to French, French to German, German to Spanish, Spanish to Portuguese and back to English. You’ll be rolling on the floor, laughing.
Computers are amazing with math, but not yet great with language. There are too many variables, to much “human-ness” to it: i.e. logic circuits do not do well with idiom, sarcasm, humor, in-jokes, etc.
I tried AltaVista Bablefish with the lyrics to the Bomb song, “Madness” (link to MP3 of song) and put it through all five languages. Here is the original:
Anna takes me in her mouth and spits me out in catholic guilt. She would like to show me all the pretty things inside her room. But I don’t want to go in there cause all I see is madness. You gave me lies. On that I based a book. You wrote a couple songs for me but I always wrote the hook. You paid my rent. All I see is madness. I fucked your friends. Walking around here with Band-Aids on your eyes? Happiness abounds in cryptic fields where the muse is cheap - she’ll sleep with anyone. And children have nice names. And privates run the wars. Anna your child’s gone unto the Garden of Eden. Anna blast a hole into the Garden of Eden. Anna your child’s gone to the Garden of Eden. Anna don’t you know your secret’s safe with me?
and here is the round-robin Bablefish result:
Ana makes the relative examination the opening me and escupe of the external part in the catholic of culpability. He has wished to the exposure of the inner part to me to all the graceful things of the relative section. But all he has not wished to comprise a cause, that is a verruecktheit of sees. They had given the lies to me it. In me I have created a book. The songs of a connection for me had written, but I have always written the hooks. They had paid my leasing. A lot that the v, are verruecktheit. I have kissed the relative friends. It encircles here with dae (the dispositive automatic rifle of input) of the adhesive tape in the relative eyes? The fortune has the abundance in the hidden zones, where the MUSE is little expensive - when duer me without the material, of that one. And the children have pleasant names. And the those that prevail execute the wars. Ana relative boy IDO to the garden of Eden. Ana interests affinchè perforates in the garden of Eden. Ana relative boy IDO to.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:16 am
oh try it with an asian language and then reverse!
true hilarity…
and this is often similar to what I need to edit in my work.
google translate is/was up as well….
August 30th, 2007 at 1:58 am
I read in the book “Mother Tounge” by Bill Bryson that while English is not the most common language in the world (it’s the 4th most common), it is by FAR the most common second language.
August 30th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
I grabbed something that was in my book and here is what babel did to it. I chose something serious and now I get the chance to laugh at it.
Here is the original:
green ribbon tied around her ankles
piercing in her bottom lip
scars of motherhood on her stomach
fire in her smile
permanent moans
nail-polish worn away on her fingertips
even this
beauty will someday die
will become dust
decay
makes one wonder if anything is really
worth the trouble
Here is what the sweetness of babelfish did for us:
the green tape connected around its ankles that far perforated in their lower scars of the lip of the maternity in their fire of the stomach in their complaints of the smile of constants after him in their yolks of the finger even this one, is what beauty that will die it someday will turn the models of the diminution of the dust an interest if that really worthy of the anxiety
September 2nd, 2007 at 8:39 am
I like to translate things from English to Japanese and back. Their word order is so different from ours that things come back really strange.
I was doing a bunch and e-mailing them to my friend Virginia one day so she wrote back, “You are having too much fun!” I ran it though and got back, “You have possessed the many pleasures.”
I used to write show reviews on the StonerRock.com message board and one night wasn’t all that happy with my review of a Stephen Malkmus show so I ran it though and got this:
So, I arrive there, is a this large line! If I in order to go before in The Echo Lounge did not wait under any condition on the line, as for becoming and without being. Perhaps, those cavity investigation or had done what, but, rear approximately 15 minutes or I calculated that speed was finally increased so. I exactly 15 minutes or being to obtain there as for thing me who let escape the Dead Meadow where therefore I die before the time of the doubtful show being worried, it had been possible.
So, as whatever, the people of the Dead Meadow and the audience who shook and die shouted, but, because of the sarcasm where the present-day band which those some people does the metal heavily, opens ” because of the indie stone idea contest is pleasant.” As shouted, it seems the way or perhaps they did enjoy that seriously? They I do not know and did the bundle of the song which (simply first there to be an album) debut and then the couple they were finished in ’cause me, to be splendid, warmly ambiguity. Those ‘ me as for last me looked at that you walked from the cause of being boring. This time when it is good, is not namely the baby!
When did I, call, before “it is warmed?” I “am hot,” the way the air adjustment “we should call, you attach, it has died my here!” I on the storm encounter to the shortage of 1 set with cause me of the long pants, I day would like to attach those to the body accidentally, the person, tomorrow you had attached to a certain body which has sweated in order to work because of me!
As for the Stephen Malkmus and that Jicks it is the on next, I do not obtain that exactly. The people why hate this person of that kind of passion, I do not obtain exactly. He writes the song of the explosion sound where the incomprehensible bit is splendid splendidly, usually, is attached with your head. It meaning that I cannot raise The Dave Matthews Band, we go to the same university or or perhaps it is there is no I and perhaps I appreciate very in you who have deviation. As for those I who do the mostly raw materials from the cover where the song really is good from debut of that eponymous post-Pavement separated the lib of the new album and cover, due to the grip and The Cure separated like, (”Without You ” perhaps?) The local free rag being cut off why hated that so, being to several of the songs where the new album is new so perhaps there is feeling the stone of the splendid prog to those, (one star from possible 6); The Gentle Giant, to is made to remember “1% of One” me.