Here's a great selection of machine translation bloopers that I stumbled across a while back...

http://www.noth.ch/betis_e.html

If you know French, be sure to check out the French version too. There are some *hilarious* ones... like where "a football fan" is translated as "un ventilateur de football". ::snort::

Posted by: codeman38 at October 15, 2004 01:51 AM

Really funny. Not to mention the 7th ingredient, "adobo" (a mixture of spices) is translated as a verb...

Posted by: Diego at October 15, 2004 07:55 AM

Definitely wins the 2004 "My hovercraft is full of eels" award.

I'm guessing the mystery ingredient is pineapple, by the way.

Posted by: Ken Meltsner at October 15, 2004 10:20 AM

I also notice that the recipe asks for one tooth of garlic... I din't know garlic had teeth!

Posted by: PlantPerson at October 15, 2004 03:30 PM

PlantPerson: It also asks you to place the ingredients in a Plato! I guess there's a use for all those philosophy works I read in class after all... :-)

Posted by: codeman38 at October 16, 2004 05:35 PM

before you go aroung insulting a good service double chech the translation at another site like:

http://world.altavista.com

when was the last time you said thank you to the folks at google; instead of snickering behind their backs.

Posted by: Dennis at October 17, 2004 03:11 PM

Well, mom always says I don't get enough iron in my diet. Or steel. Or shrapnel.

Posted by: Roland at October 17, 2004 05:55 PM

Dennis: Google and AltaVista use the same translation software... so it's not surprising they produce the same results.

Posted by: codeman38 at October 18, 2004 01:09 PM

What does "trozo grueso de piña" really mean?

Posted by: 120.1.1.12 at October 18, 2004 02:21 PM

Large chunk of pineapple

Posted by: Elite Marksman at October 18, 2004 03:15 PM

or "Fat chunk of pineapple" depending on how strict you translate 'grueso'.

Posted by: Elite Marksman at October 18, 2004 03:16 PM

PLANT PERSON: In Spanish, garlic cloves are called "dientes" in English that would be "teeth", so, the translation was literal, but inaccurate.

Anyway, these robot translations are really useless. They can give you a general idea of the subject, but with fatal results as including a hand grenade in a kitchen recipe.....

Sam

Posted by: SAM at October 18, 2004 05:49 PM

-snortsnicker-

~A Short Story~

Hey mom, these are great tacos!

Wonderful, I used a new recipie!

What's the secret ingridents?

Well, it's --

KA-BOOM!!!

~the end~

Posted by: Liz at October 18, 2004 06:17 PM

"before you go aroung insulting a good service double chech the translation at another site like:

http://world.altavista.com

when was the last time you said thank you to the folks at google; instead of snickering behind their backs."

Really? Seriously? Ok. Everyone stop making fun of Google! You're hurting Google's feelings :(

Posted by: MrTesdnil at October 26, 2004 05:53 AM

this site has Babelfish translate an English statement through 5 other languages and then back into English:

http://www.tashian.com/multibabel/

Posted by: Mike at October 26, 2004 04:43 PM

everyone likes google, and you know it

Posted by: j at November 18, 2004 03:27 PM

Lol yeah I like Lost in Translation

Are you sure you want to shut down windows?

truns to

The strong box are you you would wish them is due to arrest of the

windows?

Posted by: Bongulim at November 18, 2004 05:30 PM

it would be helpful to mention babel fish only if it actually had a better translation. However, it is exactly the same, and therefore pointless to mention as a way to "double check" google's translation. (Oh well, I guess two wrong make a right...)

Posted by: a bum at November 29, 2004 11:39 PM

i translated it on another website and i got a fragmentation gernade too.

Posted by: Unknown at February 25, 2005 11:00 AM