Using Google Translate

Google Translate has a go at the opening paragraph of my book, Grimhilda!

Two grizzly bears clambered up the walls of Toby’s fort. Above them, a pitiful troop of soldiers tried holding them off by pulling away bits of the fort and dropping them on their heads. Just when it looked as if the bears would climb over the top and eat the men for dinner, one of the desperate soldiers had an idea: ‘Let’s pour honey over the side and distract them!’ It worked admirably. The bears licked the sticky walls and forgot all about being conquerors.

Due orsi grizzly arrampicavano su per le mura di fortificazione di Toby. Sopra di loro, una truppa di soldati pietosa cercò in possesso di loro fuori tirando via bit della fortezza e li cadere sulle loro teste. Proprio quando sembrava che gli orsi sarebbero salite sopra le righe e mangiare gli uomini per la cena, uno dei soldati disperati hanno avuto un'idea: 'Andiamo a versare il miele sul lato e li distraggono!' Ha funzionato egregiamente. Gli orsi leccare le pareti appiccicose e dimenticato tutto di essere conquistatori.

And then translates back into English again...pretty good job! A few grammatical issues that lean more towards Italian than English,,,

Two grizzly bears climbing up the walls of the fortification of Toby. Above them, a troop of soldiers pitiful tried holding them off pulling off bits of the fortress and drop them on their heads. Just when it seemed that the bears would climb over the top and eat people for dinner, one of the soldiers desperate had an idea: 'We're going to pour the honey on the side and distract them!' It worked very well. The bears lick the walls sticky and forgot all about being conquerors.

Reading, writing, translating

A brief extract from a great essay by Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours and other books, including By Nightfall.

Here’s a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they’d intended to write. It’s one of the heartbreaks of writing fiction. You have, for months or years, been walking around with the idea of a novel in your mind, and in your mind it’s transcendent, it’s brilliantly comic and howlingly tragic, it contains everything you know, and everything you can imagine, about human life on the planet earth. It is vast and mysterious and awe-inspiring. It is a cathedral made of fire.

But even if the book in question turns out fairly well, it’s never the book that you’d hoped to write. It’s smaller than the book you’d hoped to write. It is an object, a collection of sentences, and it does not remotely resemble a cathedral made of fire.

The essay is primarily about the art of translation, but it also takes in what readers bring to a book, and the music of writing and a variety of other things...all in a fairly short span.

The perils of translation - Die Risikos der Übersetzung

While we’re in Luxembourg, Blogger and Google are both kindly offering me everything in German. My posts still come up in English on Google, of course, but there are a lot more German results than we’d usually see.
Anyway, in a nonsensical moment, I decided to take advantage of Google’s translation service and translate a post into German - and then translate it back out of German using something called the Free Online Translator. In the end only the first part of the post was translated back and forth, but comparing the original with the new improved translated version is intriguing.
Here’s part of the original post:
Just keep an eye over your shoulder

The other day, in one of those rare egotistical moments I have, I added myself to a site called zoominfo.com. It never crossed my mind to check that I might already be on there – after all, there are six billion people on the planet, and zoominfo mostly focuses on people in the US. But today, when I happened to come across the site again while looking up Brent Stavig (see the previous post), I found I was on there not once, not twice, but four times! Firstly there was the listing I put in myself the other day. Then there was a listing with me as a freelance writer. I hadn’t put this on. It had been picked up because a couple of Internet references caught up my name and collated them together.

Here’s the new English version:

Fair maintenance an eye over your shoulder
The other day, at one of those rare selfish moments, which I, I have added itself to an installation place which was called zoominfo.com. He never crossed my mind to examine whether I could be already switched on there - in the end, there is six milliard people on the planet, and zoominfo mostly concentrates upon people in the US. But today when I happened to bump into the installation place again by chance with the looking see up Brent Stavig (the preceding post), I found me not even was switched on there, not twice, but 4-spot! First there was the listing which I used in myself the other day. Then there was a listing with me as an independent author. I had not put this in. It had been selected up, because a pair of the Internet tips herself on top.

I kind of like the idea of being switched on, and of being an independent author. But I'm really not sure what tips herself on top means at all...

Beware the Machine

A friend had an incident with an exercise machine tonight rather like Bill Murray did in the film Lost in Translation. There was a short scene in that movie where Murray is trying to find things to do to fill in his time in Japan, so he goes on the treadmill machine. A female Japanese voice is instructing him in a rather sergeant-major way, and gets increasingly hyper about what he’s supposed to do at the same time as the machine increases its speed. Finally Murray is thrown off in a flurry of elbows and knees while the voice burbles on for him to keep on moving!!
My friend apparently got kicked off his machine, according to his wife. He then got up and it hit him and bit him at the same time. Her suggestion was that keeping fit was too dangerous.

Translated!

Fame on the Net is widespread. Or so I’d like to think. Back at the end of May I posted a short piece about shrinking shirts. Someone did a search on the German version of Google for the following odd selection of words: ‘she should lose weight church’. Don’t ask me what it’s supposed to convey. Anyway, they picked up my piece about shrinking shirts, which has a small amount to do with weight and nothing, as far as I can see, to do with church. It came up in English, of course, but alongside it is the German equivalent of Translate this site: diese seite übersetzen. Just for fun I thought I’d get it translated into German. No doubt the German it’s become is as grammatically odd as the English that we get if we ask Google to translate, but for the record, here it is:
Schrumpfende Hemden
Es ist eine ärgerliche Sache, zum etwas zu kaufen und es dann zu finden schrumpft auf dir. Vor drei oder vier Monaten kaufte ich drei Hemden vom K Handelszentrum. Alle drei von ihnen sind geschrumpft: zwei von ihnen gerade wenig aber eins beträchtlich. Meine Frau setzt es unten zu meinem gewinnengewicht während dieser Zeit. Aber ich weiß für eine Tatsache, daß eins der Hemden kleiner ist. Als ich es kaufte, würde es oben um den Ansatz tun. Jetzt wird es nicht. Du kannst nicht erklären mir, daß ich an Gewicht ringsum meinen Ansatz gesetzt habe!