Amusement

I love the Babelfish translator. If you are typing an email to someone in France, and you simply want to check to make sure your French grammar means what you think, you can translate it here. If you want to get the gist of a website you can't read in Dutch, ditto. But it is also good for general amusement. I find that the funniest phrases result from repeated translation back and forth between two languages, especially if Japanese is included, but any language will do.

English sentence
Grand compromises are composed of small seemingly meaningless decisions which accumulate over time.

Translated into French
Des compromis grands se composent de petites décisions apparemment sans signification qui accumulent le temps fini.

From French to German
Große Kompromisse setzen sich aus kleinen Entscheidungen offensichtlich ohne Bedeutung zusammen, die die beendete Zeit anhäufen.

Back to English
Large compromises consist of small decisions obviously without meaning, which accumulate the terminated time.

Then into Korean (why not?)
종결한 시간을 축적하는 작은 결정이 의미없이 큰 타협에 의하여 명백하게 이루어져 있는다.

Back to English to check the weirdness level
It accumulates the hour when it concludes small decision meaning by a without big compromise being clear, it is become accomplished.

Into Russian for a final twist
Оно аккумулирует час когда оно заключает малую смысль решения а без большого компромисса ясно, его о accomplished.

And the result
It accumulates hour when it it concludes small smysl' (?) of the solution and without a large compromise clearly, of it about accomplished.

My thoughts exactly.

My friend Edna and I used to weep with laughter when we received mangled emails from foreign correspondents we were sure were using this method. Just translate something back and forth in English and Japanese, and it will explain everything.

If you think this sort of thing is funny, try Engrish.com or Darren Barefoot's Hall of Weirdness. I guarantee you will find something that will make you laugh without making any sound. The captions are especially clever and funny on the DB site.

PS- Tamara Trivia: As a bridesmaid in my friend Karen's wedding, I had the privelege of walking with the inventor of the Klingon language. A UCLA linguist, he had developed the Klingon grammar for the Star Trek movie series. I think. As a stand-in for the bride's brother, he gave the toast in Klingon. For my part, I made sure that there were plenty of tribbles throughout the wedding festivities. I'm not kidding.