Friday, February 11, 2005

The Catcher in the Rice

I just conducted a little experiment. I took the first sentence from The Catcher in the Rye and translated it into Japanese using the Google language tools, then I took that result and translated it back into English. Here's the result:

Original Text:
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll* probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't* feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

Google Translation Result:
There was I where you whom you really probably would like to hear concerning that probably would like to know truth, the kinds all crap of the Copperfield of the デイヴィッド**, like the thing where I enter into that you are not moved, but, it could withstand my lousy infancy period before, some way first the fact that you perhaps would like to know how my parent was everything, to be it could occupy me, time,.

NOTES:

* The translator didn't like contractions, so changed them to full form.

** デイヴィッド = David

Looks to me like there's work to be done...

UPDATE: Pulled from the comments because it's worth a look...this truly is reminiscent of English As She Is Spoke . Thanks for the tip J-Go.


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