Don't trust Babelfish with German translations

Have a read of this History of Munich.

http://smart90.com/munich#Englishreview

Apparently there was also an incident of this with some small German town and their brochures which they'd used Babelfish to put into English.

I have a little card that I've kept from a hotel where I stayed in Malaga last year.

This is exactly the text as written

"Dear Clients:

We inform you that is totally for bidden to puch in side the rooms, drinks or mealds for cuestion of higienec"

Anyone have any more of this sort of thing?

Would you stay at a hotel that claims its name is the 'butcher landlord'...

http://www.familie-gumberger.de/englisch/start.htm

Keydeck... nice to know that my job still can't be done by a computer... not yet anyway!

Well there's the sign in the Black Forest which said "It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose"...

We use an app called ifinger which you simply double click on the word, even in Word, Excel or a PDF and it gives the translation. One of the neatest lexi-tools I ever found! Thoroughly recommended.

Jeremy.

Sounds a bit heterophobic to me, AM.

Once again, to make myself clear to all you people down there in my best colonial English:

We make use of a software application titled "iFinger" ™. One may simply double click on almost any word in any software application - the so-called Microsoft suite of programs titled "Word", "Excel", or for that matter any Adobe ™ Acrobat filed ending with the file extension *.PDF and the software application translates the word in situ so to speak.

This software application comes thoroughly recommended as an efficient software tool. Its lexical analytical functionality is considerably powerful.

Good enuff?

Can you believe there is a guy on Radio Bahrain who still speaks to the expats like that?

Translating individual words is a piece of cake. It's translating whole sentences which is the problem, and which often gives amusing results such as those demonstrated by Keydeck's example.

jeremy, surely you mean the Microsoft suite of prograMMEs, old bean?

ttfn
J

I think Jeremy's repost, re-post, whatever, was in response to the "heterophobic" comment which wasn't actually directed at him at all but rather at the Black Forest camping rules from AM above.

Or is I the confused one?

Ah, now it makes sense! God am I stupid! LOL!

Been working too much lately...

Typical internet...it isn't just the hardware cables that get crossed...

Der Groschen ist gefallen! (the penny dropped!)

Another penny just dropped - now I understand, since they are camping rules.

Been a good day for strange translations.
My box of dishwasher salt informs me that the contents are "Pleasure-unsuitable salt. Should not be applied to human pleasure and to the production by food."
(Awww.)

And the instructions for a stepper with built-in Nordic walking poles (there's posh) warn
"Wave pole after using , please is it lock bottom knob collect to remember."

But before I start waving my pole,
"If there is a possibility to seen an improper display on the monitor, please replace the batteries to have a good result."

There's also some stuff about "labricate the moving parts". Presumably after seeing the improper display but before waving my pole.

I just find it impressive that you assumed that you COULD trust babelfish, keydeck. Never listened to, read, or watched the hitchhiker's guide? (going from oldest to newest media)

I liked this one, from a job advert I was looking at today: "Spaß am Umgang mit Menschen"
Babelfish: "fun at handling humans"

@inka:
sounds like the people described here German prostitutes to retrain as nurses would be ideally qualified...

@crusoe: Guess I'll let the prostitutes apply for this one then!

@inka: Don't let me cramp your style...

I guess this is time for an Engrish link...

That reminds me of a sign at the front of the Shinkobe cable car station in Japan. To date it is the funniest example of crappy Japanese to English translation I've ever seen - or rather, that I can remember (and unfortunately the photographic evidence is in an album in Australia). Have searched engrish.com quite a few times to see if someone else has seen it and posted the pic, but no such luck.

'Carrying in into a pet's gondola, refuses a dog a cat etc'.

Fuck!

Just a thanks will do ma'am, we barely know each other.

Arigato gozaimasu

Indeed. Kohi demo go issho ni ikaga desu ka?