Daibutsu, Kamakura

Daibutsu, Kamakura
Daibutsu in Kamakura, June 2010. There were thousands of school kids visiting that day. It was still great fun.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Google Translate

Google's translation feature is pretty cool and it has been getting better. But it's translations are far from perfect of course and often can be pretty funny. Here are some Google translations from the City of Nikko website about suspicious persons. The following are descriptions of various suspicious person's.

1. Male, age late 30 early 40 years old, 165 centimeters tall, thin build build, tanned, lean face, the wind seemingly humble worker wearing pants Dabodabo.

Maybe he moves like the wind but I don't know what Dabodabo looks like.

2. Male, age 50 years old place, 165 centimeters tall, medium build, light blue short-sleeved shirt, black pants, wear glasses with grizzled hair is in short.

At least it didn't say "grizzled hair is in HIS shortS."

3. Man, age about 20 years earlier, slim, white T-shirt, black pants, a white man with a towel covering his head, riding a bike of unknown color.

I was in Nikko last week but at least I didn't have a towel on my head.

4. Male, 165 centimeters tall, plump-type, black-framed glasses, wearing a disposable paper mask, long pants, an unknown color, black umbrella, carrying a plastic bag

Half of Japan wears paper disposable masks. Good luck finding this guy.


2 comments:

  1. I use a translation software at work. Its the source of many mangled messages. For the longest time I could not understand why it would randomly insert "eggplant" into emails I received. Till I realized that "nasu", a nearby area and common abbreviation for where I (and your wife's family) live translates as "eggplant".

    I use google translate and a list of kanji terms that I can cut and paste to successfully transact most online web services.

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  2. I think that's great that you can use something like Google Translate today. What an amazing technology.

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