Thursday 8 May 2008

Lost in Translation ... ?

I found a clever little widget over at Bookersatz which translates your blog for you. It's called Altavista Babelfish Translator and you can see it over there on the right and down a bit.

But because the title of my blog includes a neologism the translations are hilarious.

In French MATs translate as NATTES (plaits or braids); in German MATs translate as MATTEN (enough or curds) and in Norwegian as FOOD (I found that by mistake - there isn't a Norwegian flag on the widget); in Chinese there are apparently no characters for Angela or blog and by the time I clicked on the Portuguese flag Bablefish had expired for the day.

Never mind, it's surely enough to confuse the French, the Germans and the Norwegians into thinking that I plait my hair instead of writing; that I have simply had enough of writing or that I resort to eating curds (or anything) instead of writing.

I wonder how this post will translate ... ?

4 comments:

StuckInABook said...

Ha ha!

attaccare-in-un-libro
plakken-in-a-boek
막히 에서 책
furar-em-um-livro
вставлять-в--книга
κολλώ--α-βιβλίο

Angela Young said...

Truly wonderful, Simon ... I particularly like furar-em-um-livro, and the Greek is just SO stylish.

Anonymous said...

I made the mistake of using babelfish to translate some words for my Spanish class. We were learning names for foods and I was the only one with a different term for 'nuts'. It turned out that Babelfish translated it as 'crazy'.
Marsha
http://writingcompanion.wordpress.com

Angela Young said...

But ... doesn't it make you love the English language all the more for the fact that the same word can mean crazy and something to eat and the other end of a bolt.

Although I have to say that I'm glad I'm a native speaker ... it can't be the easiest language to learn.