Nico is our Mauritian homie in Bangkok. I like visiting his blog and pretending I can read French every day for a couple minutes, then invariably loading his page through a site like Babelfish in order to see how much I misunderstood (alas, invariably much more than I understood).
Anyway, the title of this post stems from the Babelfish translation of the term, “coup d’etat.” Go check it out yourself here.
That’s right, blow d’etat! I’m writing the screenplay in my head right now – I’m thinking Austrian accents, chained midgets, and trannie crossdressing ladyboy amputees… “Meesta? Ver are ze royal jew-els?”
This is bound to be a hit.
…………
I think the current strategy of translation-providing machines is to generate nonsensical translations of such entertainment value that we humans forgive them for actually sucking at their real purpose. For instance, I think c’est much fuzzier* is the greatest expression I have ever heard! And a stupid machine thought it up!
*fifth paragraph from the bottom of the page I linked to above, linked again here just in case
Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
I have to admit I had a good time reading “Concrete blog” in such an approximative language.
I suspect it would translate a real french blog better than mine.
I don’t use the accents which is a problem for a computer. That’s how where becomes an or from french to english. Because I don’t include that necessary accent.
But it sucks any way. No doubt on that. I would just suck less.
Did you manage to understand my point on this post? I think it’s quite important. If babelfish is not doing the job well enough, I will translate it in english.
I think I got the point – I confirmed my airline ticket yesterday and will be flying into Bangkok on October 20, just as I planned.
Beer?
Can I be in the movie, too? There is always need for an overweight dude in p0rn.
David, you crack me up! Now I can’t get that picture out of my head!
Reminds me of the trailer from the new “Jackass 2” movie…..ouch!