From: Spike Jones (spike66@attglobal.net)
Date: Fri Jun 08 2001 - 22:02:20 MDT
John Clark wrote:
> Just for fun I took a passage from Engines Of Creation, used Babel Fish
> computer translation to turn it into German and then used it to turn it back
> into English. Believe it or not it's a lot better than it was 6 months ago...
Another list which I frequent regarding British motorcycles had a
Japanese member who was using a translation program, since he
speaks no English. There was no end to the misunderstandings. The
Brits are hard enough to understand as it is, and the limey blokes were
using language with a lot of local color. So this poor Japanese
blighter was sincere as Linus' pumpkin patch and simply could
not dig the scene, wasn't hip. He was always taking offense needlessly,
thinking people were making fun of him. Or he would fear that
he had caused offense. Then would ensue a string of sincere
but hilarious posts "I am humbling greatly my face downcast
with large shame, and begging your extreme forgiveness!" etc.
Then we would reply with "Do not humbling downcast your
face, Mate!" etc. Hard telling how that translated, but needless
to say the grok factor was low. I figure some sort of major software
improvement is needed before we overcome Mr. Damn's curse
at the Tower of Babylon [Genesis 11:1-9] spike
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