I found a clever little widget over at Bookersatz which translates your blog for you. It’s called Altavista Babelfish Translator and you can see it over there on the right and down a bit.
But because the title of my blog includes a neologism the translations are hilarious.
In French MATs translate as NATTES (plaits or braids); in German MATs translate as MATTEN (enough or curds) and in Norwegian as FOOD (I found that by mistake – there isn’t a Norwegian flag on the widget); in Chinese there are apparently no characters for Angela or blog and by the time I clicked on the Portuguese flag Bablefish had expired for the day.
Never mind, it’s surely enough to confuse the French, the Germans and the Norwegians into thinking that I plait my hair instead of writing; that I have simply had enough of writing or that I resort to eating curds (or anything) instead of writing.
I wonder how this post will translate … ?
http://www.writinglifeandtheuniverse.blogspot.com/
But … doesn’t it make you love the English language all the more for the fact that the same word can mean crazy and something to eat and the other end of a bolt.
Although I have to say that I’m glad I’m a native speaker … it can’t be the easiest language to learn.
I made the mistake of using babelfish to translate some words for my Spanish class. We were learning names for foods and I was the only one with a different term for ‘nuts’. It turned out that Babelfish translated it as ‘crazy’.
Marsha
http://writingcompanion.wordpress.com
Truly wonderful, Simon … I particularly like furar-em-um-livro, and the Greek is just SO stylish.
Ha ha!
attaccare-in-un-libro
plakken-in-a-boek
막히 에서 책
furar-em-um-livro
вставлять-в–книга
κολλώ–α-βιβλίο