A tip of the tongue

I don't know what took me so long. It's old news by now. But I'm still amazed. Here's a text in English about William Styron, chosen at random from this blog. (Actually, someone else chose it.) Now here it is in Spanish, in French, in German ... OK, how about Chinese?

Gawd! Put in any text you like. The translation takes no more than seconds. If the translated text is from a Web page, you can mouse over any particular sentence and have it highlighted in a pop-up box in the original language.

How good are the translations? How should I know? I don't read Chinese. But I do have some rusty French, some rudimentary Spanish, and a faint recognition of German -- and they looked intelligible to me.

Postscript: Supervert writes: "Google's translation service is just one of the many reasons they approach being a technological equivalent of the old-time conception of divinity. All-knowing and able to speak in tongues... Kicks the shit out of me too. And it all started with an algorithm cooked up by two dorky grad students in a dorm room."

PPS: Bill Osborne replies, "I always thought God was a bit dumb." And adds, "Hier are sum dokumenten you can tast the Programm mit." He offers a comparison of the Googlematic German and Italian translations of this original text in English with the idiomatic German and Italian translations. But he concedes that "even if full of errors and sometimes misleading," the Google service "will be a boon for an extensive correspondence I have going with someone who only speaks Spanish."

December 5, 2008 9:40 AM | | Comments (0)

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Me Elsewhere

'WILD SIDE' STILL ROCKS 

Nelson Algren was one of the great American authors of the 20th century, it is no exaggeration to say, and among the most neglected. Consider his underrated classic, "A Walk on the Wild Side." The title -- popularized and co-opted as an idiomatic phrase by Hollywood and Madison Avenue (institutions Algren loathed) -- is familiar to most anyone who speaks English or knows Lou Reed's lyrics. But the novel itself? Hardly.

BUSTER KEATON REVISITED 
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LAUREN BACALL, STILL SALTY AT 80 
When Lauren Bacall writes that her singing voice ranges "somewhere between B minus sharp and outer space," she's being candid and funny. It's not every stage star with two Tony Awards for best actress in a musical whose vocal talent offers so little promise. (OK, Harvey Fierstein excepted.) Still less would one admit it.
THE STARS ACCORDING TO BOGDANOVICH 
Peter Bogdanovich's superb collection of movie-star profiles and interviews -- a sequel to Who the Devil Made It, his interviews of top film directors -- begins with an affectionate tale about Orson Welles that reminds us just how intimate the author's connection to Hollywood's greatest has been. But contrary to what we've come to expect from dime-a-dozen celebrities and celebrity interviews not worth two cents, the tale avoids bromidic egotism and journalistic platitudes.
SAMMY'S WHITE DREAMS 
Four decades ago Lenny Bruce sentenced Sammy Davis Jr. to "30 years in Biloxi," stripping him of "his Jewish star" and "his religious statue of Elizabeth Taylor." Now we have two new biographies of Davis that spring him from ridicule, if not from doubts about his legacy, and restore a measure of dignity to a black entertainer whose huge fame and success never overcame his devout wish -- indeed his lifelong effort -- to be white.
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This page contains a single entry by Straight Up | published on December 5, 2008 9:40 AM.

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