The one where Josh communicates with someone in another language
July 1, 2007 by Josh Nunn
The Internet is so fun, I love it!
Was uploading some photos to my PicasaWeb album and noticed that someone had managed to find my photos and had left a comment! Yay me!
It didn’t bother me much that the comment was in what seemed to be Spanish, or that for all I knew it could have been spam. But I did what any curious geek would do: I ran it through a translator.
ES UNA HERMOOOOSURA ..
DE PERRITO =)
PUPPY,
EL DEL ANUNCIO DE PAPEL PARA LIMPIARSE EL CULOComment from my photo album
becomes:
IT IS A HERMOOOOSURA. OF SMALL DOG =) PUPPY, THE ONE OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF PAPER TO CLEAN THE ASS
Of course, this is NOT a satisfactory translation. It’s almost offensive at first glance — like they could be saying he should be used to wipe someone’s butt. Or something.
But I persevered. I tried Babelfish with much the same result.
Hermoooosura didn’t translate, and I guessed it might be spelt strangely — like with to many o’s for instance. But Google wouldn’t translate ‘hermosura’ either. A quick search brought up this page and this discussion though, which says it means ‘incredible beauty’. So I believe ‘hermoooosura’ is better translated as ‘sooooo beautiful’ — like a young girl might say about a tiny white dog.
Realising that she was probably being nice, I kept trying to understand the translation. Further poking around in translations sites helped me realise that ‘anuncio’ while translated as ‘announcement’ can also be translated ‘advertisement’ or ‘ad’. I then quickly realised ‘paper to clean the ass’ (papel para limpiarse el culo) is actually TOILET PAPER! And it all falls into place. This is my rough translation:
It is soooo beautiful and small =)
It looks like the puppy off the toilet paper ad.Translated comment from my photo album
What a lovely thing for a complete stranger to say! And how fantastic that someone I’ve never met — who doesn’t speak my language — can leave me a message, and I actually have a chance to understand her. To actually communicate across languages!
I have since learned that ‘perrito’ can be translated ‘doggie’ which is even cuter! and ‘limpiarse’ conjures images of flossing! How marvellous is language?!
NOTE: I will post this on my education blog as well.
Thanks for dropping by Nala, I love your website and it's gratifying to have you here.
Even better than the phrase "paper to clean the ass" is the fantastic translation google gave for LIMPIARSE (the word I've translated as 'clean') which seems to suggest it's more like flossing. Maybe a better phrase is "Paper to floss the ass" (or just 'ass floss').
Anyway's I'm just glad I haven't written my glowing 'Transformers' review yet. Now that I know you might read it I think I'll pass. :)
The one where Josh communicates with someone in another language
July 1, 2007 by Josh Nunn
The Internet is so fun, I love it!
Was uploading some photos to my PicasaWeb album and noticed that someone had managed to find my photos and had left a comment! Yay me!
It didn’t bother me much that the comment was in what seemed to be Spanish, or that for all I knew it could have been spam. But I did what any curious geek would do: I ran it through a translator.
becomes:
Of course, this is NOT a satisfactory translation. It’s almost offensive at first glance — like they could be saying he should be used to wipe someone’s butt. Or something.
But I persevered. I tried Babelfish with much the same result.
Hermoooosura didn’t translate, and I guessed it might be spelt strangely — like with to many o’s for instance. But Google wouldn’t translate ‘hermosura’ either. A quick search brought up this page and this discussion though, which says it means ‘incredible beauty’. So I believe ‘hermoooosura’ is better translated as ‘sooooo beautiful’ — like a young girl might say about a tiny white dog.
Realising that she was probably being nice, I kept trying to understand the translation. Further poking around in translations sites helped me realise that ‘anuncio’ while translated as ‘announcement’ can also be translated ‘advertisement’ or ‘ad’. I then quickly realised ‘paper to clean the ass’ (papel para limpiarse el culo) is actually TOILET PAPER! And it all falls into place. This is my rough translation:
What a lovely thing for a complete stranger to say! And how fantastic that someone I’ve never met — who doesn’t speak my language — can leave me a message, and I actually have a chance to understand her. To actually communicate across languages!
I have since learned that ‘perrito’ can be translated ‘doggie’ which is even cuter! and ‘limpiarse’ conjures images of flossing! How marvellous is language?!
NOTE: I will post this on my education blog as well.
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Tags: commenters rock, friend, internet, technology, translation, web
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