Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Babelfish Telephone Game


Due to the high concentration of Spanish-speaking students in my class (and, as a corollary, the number of parents who speak only Spanish), I have been reduced to depths not seen since I was in high school. That's right, I'm using babelfish to translate phrases for me. The shoddy translations I am no doubt receiving from this website have inspired me to play a telephone game of sorts. I'll translate the message over and over from one language to another to see how the site perverts the message from one language to another.

Original message:
Your child may not pass the first grade.
English-->Spanish-->French-->German-->English
Result:
Its child cannot ignore the first degree.

Original message:
We are learning about matter in our new science unit.
English-->Spanish-->Portugese-->French-->Greek-->English
Result:
We in learn in the matter in in our new unit of science.

Original message:
Please practice counting to one hundred with your child.
English-->Russian-->Korean-->English
Result:
In order to produce 100 when in the thing your child and you acquire a specialty.

Original message:
Please sign and return this form.
English-->Korean -->Spanish-->French-->Dutch-->English
Result:
This sample and elasticity in the manner.

Original message:
Your child has been absent for several days.
English-->Greek-->French-->Portugese-->Russian-->Japanese-->Chinese-->English
Final message:
Your child is the absence to many days.

Original message:
Please contact me.
English-->Japanese-->French-->Greek-->Dutch-->English
Final message:
Comuniqj!ese with have. [The exclamation mark appeared somewhere between Greek and Dutch]

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Haha, this is pretty funny.

Anonymous said...

Haha, that's kind of pathetic from any way you look at it. If you ever need a quick translation just e-mail me and Lord knows I will be able to stop whatever I wasn't doing at work to help. I have been depressed lately about how little I use my Spanish minor.

Anonymous said...

ah babefish- the guaranteed way to be discovered cheating. If you need some phrases or whatever, call me or email me and I'll translate them into spanish if you want.