Babelfish Contest

[Student of Trinity]

I think Taslim, who appears to be wdueck, just thought we were all bringing our own quotes. Given how different they all come out, this is somewhat understandable. Maybe we can use that one later, though I think it may be a bit too long. With long quotes the chances become too high that everyone ends up with a few good words but nobody's even looks as though it's trying to make sense, so it's too hard for anyone to clearly win.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

I think Taslim, who appears to be wdueck, just thought we were all bringing our own quotes. Given how different they all come out, this is somewhat understandable. Maybe we can use that one later, though I think it may be a bit too long. With long quotes the chances become too high that everyone ends up with a few good words but nobody's even looks as though it's trying to make sense, so it's too hard for anyone to clearly win.

I have a shorter (and very similar) one if that's the case. I withheld it because I felt it might be too short, but here you go:

Originally Posted By: Virginia Wolfe

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman"

[Student of Trinity]

 

I forget what order of languages this was, but it was long. I stopped because my sentence seems to have broken its neck.

 

Is the unknown woman relates to the most past record data which something which

[The Mystic]

Original quote:

Quote:

For most of history, Anonymous was a woman

After translating from English to Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese to English:

Quote:

Regarding majority histories, what anonymous is the woman

I had gone much farther than this (full list: English to Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese to English to Dutch to French to Spanish to English to Greek to French to Portugese to English to Japanese to English to Korean to English), but each time the translation went back to English, it was too readable.

[Jerakeen]

English to Dutch and back again:

 

Quote:

For anonymously the bulk of history, a woman was.

 

I didn't think I could improve on that.

[Ephesos]

Originally Posted By: Original

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman"

English to Greek (apparently, "woman" doesn't translate into Greek?)
Greek to English
English to Dutch
Dutch to English
English to Chinese-trad
Chinese-trad to Chinese-simp
Chinese-simp to English
English to Italian
Italian to English
English to Korean
Korean to English
English to German
German to English
English to Chinese-simp
Chinese-simp to Chinese-trad
Chinese-trad to English

Originally Posted By: End

She is in the important anonymous part woman, is the history

...yeah, I couldn't get this one to do much without breaking. French kept giving stray "c'"s, Russian kept giving untranslatable words in brackets, and Portugese... just does nothing helpful.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Ephesos

and Portugese... just does nothing helpful.

QFT

[Rowen]

English -> Spanish -> English

 

Quote:

For most of history, anonymous she was a woman

 

Hmm, almost the same as the original.

[Triumph]

Originally Posted By: Rowen

English -> Spanish -> English

Quote:

For most of history, anonymous she was a woman

Hmm, almost the same as the original.

I tried this one, and couldn't come up with anything interesting. All translations were either very, very similar to the original, or suddenly and precipitously descended into untranslated garbage.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Triumph

uddenly and precipitously descended into untranslated garbage.

Isn't that the point of the game?

Any rate, winner gets declared tomorrow.

[Triumph]

Well, if the "translation" ends up as weird foreign words that don't get translated, it's not very entertaining. What's entertaining is having a final translation that is in English words, but which says something bizarre/strange/silly.

[Dikiyoba]

Quote:

Negotiations probably directly in anonymous subject aggregates the majority and woman' s he?

Dikiyoba's translation chain was English-simple Chinese-English-Japanese-English-simple Chinese-English-Dutch-French-English-Russian-English-Korean-English-Italian-English-Greek-English-Korean-English-Japanese-English-simple Chinese-*gasps*-English-French-English-simple Chinese-English-Spanish-English-*exhales*.

[Triumph]

Dikiyoba FTW.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Any rate, winner gets declared tomorrow.

Soooo... Who won?

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Any rate, winner gets declared tomorrow.

Soooo... Who won?

There's only one answer to that question:

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

Quote:

Negotiations probably directly in anonymous subject aggregates the majority and woman' s he?

Congratulations!

[Ephesos]

Was anyone else slated to judge the next round? If not, I will happily volunteer my services.

[Rowen]

I didn't see anyone listed to offer the next sentence. If Dikiyoba doesn't mind then feel free to judge/provide a phrase.

[Dikiyoba]

Why would I mind?

 

Dikiyoba is too busy winning to judge.

[The Mystic]

But not too busy to post a comment about being too busy, apparently.

 

If no one else has a good quote handy, and if there are no objections, I could start another round.

Originally Posted By: Ephesos

Was anyone else slated to judge the next round? If not, I will happily volunteer my services.

As far as I'm concerned, feel free; personally, I'm just too lazy to judge.

[Ephesos]

Go ahead and start it off, Mystic. I can supply the phrase for the round after this one.

[The Mystic]

Deal.

 

This time, it's a quote from a musical; I think it was Nunsense or one of its sequels. Anyway, here it is:

 

Quote:

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

[The Mystic]

*bump*

 

I guess this one is suffering from a severe lack of interest. Here's one translation, and we're moving on.

 

English-German-English

Click to reveal..

I' D have rather a bottle before me as a frontal Lobotomy.

*takes some aspirin*

Ugh. After five attempts, that was the best I could could come up with. Apparently, this one doesn't translate very well.

 

Originally Posted By: Ephesos

I can supply the phrase for the round after this one.

It's all yours.

[Triumph]

If you go...

 

English-Greek-English-Russian-English-Japanese-English-German-English-Spanish-English-French-English-Chinese-simple-Chinese-traditional-English-Portuguese-English-Korean-English-Dutch-French-Italian-English

 

...you get:

 

I guaranteed the circle that is to this newest one cliché.

[The Mystic]

Ummmm....Wow.

 

That result from so many translations reminds me of a commercial for a telephone company when I was a teenager. During the commercial, someone started a game of "telephone" with a phrase saying the company now had newer, lower rates for making international calls. As this was passed from one person to the next, it would get translated into another language. When the message got back to the original person, it had become, "French fries come with blue tennis shoes" or something similar.

[Ephesos]

Hm. Okay... then I'm going to pull a charming little phrase from this article.

 

Quote:

Right out there, right in plain damn sight, a pickup truck got stoled last night out by the Murphy place, sources done reported Thursday.

 

Go.

[The Mystic]

English-Dutch-French-Portugese-English-Greek-English-Spanish-English

Quote:

Correct Deaquilo, exactly in blasphémerde of the person by all means, vorge of the repetition taken the place from Murphy at night, the finished sources [epikoinonimeni] Thursday.

Not exactly my best, but pretty good nonetheless. I actually enjoy posting the quotes and reading the results a lot more than doing the translating.

[RCCCL]

Quote:

The right outside there, to the right seen of blasphème, an open truck that acquired yesterday at night clear outside by Murphy places, sources that happened to be Thursday at issue.

English>Greek>French>Spanish>English

I don't understand why it seemed to have a problem translating blasphème, blasphemy in spanish is blasfemia. Though I find it funny that that's what "damn" turned into.