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I used to (and still do) love science fiction books about the future. The ideas and visions of the future that the authors espouse are usually very inspiring for me. One novel I remember reading when I was approaching my teens was “The Intergalactic Omniglot”, by Jenni Fleetwood. In this book, a young boy discovers an advanced alien device which the title of the book is named after. This ‘Omniglot’ allows him to understand any language spoken across the Universe. Of course this device is very valuable, and as is usual when discovering alien devices, he ends up playing an important part in a galaxy-wide saga (that’s about as much as I remember, I’m afraid). Anyway, I bring this up, because I think we humans have invented a crude version of said device, in the form of online translation services like Altavista’s babelfish. Not all languages translate well, but some work well enough to allow people across the world to communicate with each other.

Take a look at the picture above. It shows me, an English speaker, communicating with Donny, a Brazilian Portuguese speaker. I find it absolutely amazing that the Internet and an online translation service have enabled me to make a friend in a country 6687 km away.

When things go wrong

As I alluded to above, not all languages translate well. Here’s an absolutely hilarious translation of a piece of text from a Taiwanese friend’s Mandarin Chinese blog:

Will change the melon melon class thesis extremely painful altogether 24 tomorrow to have to deliver (entire one good is bothersome, some who will be allowed to help me to change?) Did obeisance four evening on first changes 5 to do obeisance for five earlies morning to change 2 originally to die in battle The melon class children are quite strange regardless of you said how any they all don’t have are listening For instance said back the comma must empty space, after the period, the question mark has free time two each Duan Yao to write subject sentence topic the sentence subject sentence to have to have controling back the idea each subject sentence at least to have to have 3-5 support sentence supporting sentences ending conclusion is begins introduction after the different sentence to say again a time of rough draft.