January 6, 2008
Babelfish phrase game — Round 1
Babelfish is a machine-translation service offered at a few websites, like these at Yahoo and Yahoo property Altavista. These translations can be somewhat amusing. Indeed, they can be source of a guessing game. A well-known English phrase — say a quote, or idiom, or song lyric — is translated into a foreign language and back a few times. The resulted is presented, and the challenge is to guess the original.
I’ll start with five; please feel free to post your answers in the comment thread. You can check them before posting, at the second link above. 
- Attach me and me become to the bottom more effective than you can to indeed present you (English –> German –> French –> English)
- A law was returned to the moon loine makes here (English –> Italian –> French –> English)
- It is not for the sake of, ask those which your country can ask those which can make because of your country and do (English –> Japanese –> English)
- Whose of wood these will be me think 4 he knows (English –> Russian –> English)
- Sincerely I do not give my expensive, with swore (English –> German –> French –> English)
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5 Responses to “Babelfish phrase game — Round 1”
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3. Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.
No clue about the others.
Here’s a related tool/site I just found: http://www.blahblahfish.com
Nice link, thanks!
And congrats on getting the first answer!
CAM
5. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.
Number 4: Whose woods these are I think I know (Robert Frost)
Well done, both of you!