Re: How factual are second-hand translations?

From: Spike Jones (spike66@attglobal.net)
Date: Mon Jan 07 2002 - 23:38:55 MST


> >"The Spirit is willing but
> > the flesh is weak" to Russian by a translation machine. The
> > result supposedly came out to something like, "The Vodka is good
> > but the meat is rotten."...> - samantha

Things have gotten better. See http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr

Using babblefish to translate the phrase The spirit is willing but
the flesh is weak, from English to French to German to English:

The spirit is ready, but the flesh is weak.

Not bad at all. Now English to German to French to English

The spirit is ready, but the meat is weak.

Still, not too bad for two translations. OK, now "out of sight,
out of mind", from English to French to German to English:

Outside of the view, outside of the spirit.

I like it! It almost gets a poetic ring to it that way. Now English to

German to French to English:

Of a sight of entendement outside.

OK, so I should have quit while I was ahead. But in any
case, I have a clear vision of a near future in which a wearable
computer will be able to do practical speech recognition and
voice synthesis in close enough to real time and with great
enough fidelity that practically anyone in the world will be
able to have a meaningful conversation with practically anyone
else. spike

The above paragraph, from English to German to French to English:

O K, me should have terminated, me thus taient ahead wahrend. But in
each case glichem, I have a free sight of a future troit to make a voice

recognition and a linguistic synthetic practise in which a computer
wearable
can, in abschlue enough with Istzeit and the fid enough groer
which everyone in the world practically can, aussagef
with practically everyone to have besides. Above else. spik

{Well, perhaps not *that* near a future} spik



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