Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Here Comes Santa Claus!

At the end of this post is a recording made just over a year ago, during a music and comedy party at our house. But first, a bit of explanation:

For several years, I've found an insane level of amusement via the use of a certain translation website. Specifically, I've found that if I put the words to a song (something complicated, or one which tells a story usually works best) into the translation device, and ask for a translation in German, then put that German translation back into the device and ask for French, then go to Italian, to Spanish, back to Italian, to French, to German, and back to English, the results can be hysterical. 

I'm surely not the only one, or the first one to hit on this idea, but it's resulted in several great translations, and plenty of deep, long laughs. As an example, here is how the first section of the lyrics to "Splish Splash" came out, via this process: 

SPLISH PLOP 

Splish, splashes,I did a bath
Well, the Saturday absorbed on a night the Sunday!
they rub, you synchronize,
To grant the fact of alone in the barrel,
Thinking, that everything remained in the order.

Now, I took out barrel
they put my feet on the ground
I enveloped the bathrobe at myself
And I it opened carries she.

And then a splish, splashes,
I did a jump in the bath
Now like I, to know, he was,
A party continued there.

You were a splishings and a splash
The whirlwind with the feeling
The fact, to move, and a trench
Weighing and a Papiere-Bons!

Bing, noises,I saw the whole fanfare
The dance on my carpet good parlors
Flip tumble
You made the bop
The whole youth age had the dancing bug.
it had be the trendy of chupa-chups for property this Sr.ta
Molly then with a Peggy Son there, also a court there!

A source A. splish, splashes,
I forgot the bath
I went, and I put on well my dancing shoes!

Anyway, what I've just uploaded is a recording made of me reading a translation of "The Night Before Christmas", prepared in this way, with plenty of laughter, both in response, and from me, given that I had not thought to re-read the document just before giving this performance (resulting in my having forgotten the funniest parts, and laughing at them again. Hope you find this enjoyable.

Play:

ADDENDUM, 2/10/22: I didn't want to say the name of the translation site at the time, for fear of letting the company involved know that someone was messing with their free service in this was, but it was a feature of the Lionbridge company, called the iTranslator, and has been defunct now for well over a decade. 

2 comments:

Sammy Reed said...

Heck, just putting something in Spanish and back to English again on this site brings funny results!

I'm sure a lot of people know the "certain translation website" you're talking about. It's not like there's more than one that fits this description. It's pretty well-known not to be relied on if you want to try to impress a Spanish-speaker that you have any "knowledge of Spanish".

Anonymous said...

2/22/22:
I thought it was BabelFish.