Fun with Babelfish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So most of you are probably aware of the website Babelfish. The site is named after a very useful creature in Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, a fish that you stick in your ear and it will translate any language for you. Brilliant. Anyway it’s a great website where you can translate a block of text into another language, but it is a software program so usually something is lost in the translation.

So this is the first of what may be a continuing experiment, I’m going to translate a well known poem or prose passage into another language (chosen at random), and then back into English. Then if you recognize the poem/passage tell me what it is via comments. The first person with the correct answer will win my utmost respect.

Ready? Here we go (and by the way this is NOT a naked excuse to get more comments) (hahaha, he said “naked”). One of my faves, translated into what Babelfish calls Chinese – simp as opposed to Chinese traditional. It’s actually pretty close, you guys can get this easy.

Passed by in a Snoy evening the forest

Whose forest these are I thought that I knew.
His house in village, though;
He will not see me to stop here
to watch his forest to fill up with the snow.

My small horse must think that it stops strangely,
does not use the farmhouse nearly
between the forest and the frozen lake
the year darkest evening.

Whether he does give his harness bell vibration
to ask there’ s some mistake.
Only other sound’ the s
easy wind and soft flaking clean.

The forest is lovable, dark and deep,
but I have the promise maintain,
and goes mile, before I sleep,
and goes mile, before I sleep.