by Daividh (guest)
4/16/2001, 1:46 PM
Nan,
Hehehe! Translation programs ain't all quite there yet, are they?
Our family in France (my grandmother's side) decided a few years ago to "help us out" when sending us letters and instead of posting them in French (which even I, the least literate relation on our side of the Atlantic, usually could figure out), bought a computer translation program and sent them over in tortuously idiotic English. They were funny as hell, but half the time we had no idea what was being said.
A great-aunt, for example, reminisced about her husband's adventures on "the forehead", which we finally figured out meant "the Front" in WW I. My Dad eventually did what you did: translated some of these abominations back into literal French for them. When they saw the results, the software was trashed.
This German program you found is only slightly better. It gave us "wagnis" which I puzzled at as a Goth(?) verb until I realized it was Wagnis, a NOUN for "venture". "Uebersprang" isn't quite right either in context, and somewhere there should have been a "zu essen" in that first sentence. Anyway, the attempt was fun to see!
"Gruess Gott" is/was a common greeting only in Austria and southern Bavaria, but somehow it seemed appropriate for Easter...
Incidentally, the "winzip" source you gave me worked great. Thanks!
Dave