Fun With Babel Fish

After my last post, and a comment from good friend Lisa, I thought I would have some fun translating certain American cliches into other languages and then translating them back to English to see how the translator literally does it. Since there would be a double translation thing going, you know there is going to be weirdness, as any student who ever played the "telephone game" would tell you.

So, I tried to find a good American cliche, and the one I picked was "There is no I in team." To which, Michael Irvin, I think, once famously replied, "yeah, but there is no team without m-e."

Anyways, the results:

German:

Es gibt kein I in der Mannschaft.
It gives no I in the crew.

French:

Il n'y a aucun I dans l'équipe. (Of course, wrong.)
There is no I in the team. (Close, though.)

Spanish:

No hay I en equipo. (Wrong.)
There is I in no equipment.

Portugese:

Não há nenhum I na equipe. (Wrong.)
It does not have no I in the team.

Dutch:

Er is geen I in team.
There is none I in team. (Dutch is obviously closer to English than we thought.)

Russian:

Не будет I в команде.
I In the command not will be. (Interesting. And very Russian. And very Yoda.)

Greek:

Δεν υπάρχει κανένα ι στην ομάδα.
Does not exist no one I in the team.

Italian:

Non ci è I in squadra.
Not there is in square. (Totally nonsensical. Classic Italian. I love it!)

Korean:

팀안에I.
Inside team I. (Very Asian. No negative, just the positive without consideration.)

Traditional Chinese:

沒有I 在隊。
Not I in team. (Perfect.)


Fascinating. I'm going to have to try to do this on a weekly basis. Send your favorite colloquialism for the Babel Fish test.