Who Hijacked Our Country

Thursday, October 18, 2007

I’m Fluent in German

Actually, no I'm not. Not at all. Funny story…

If you have a blog or website, you're probably checking your HitCounter / SiteMeter frequently (come on, fess up). We all want to know how many visits we’re getting and what type of visits — web searches, other bloggers, “unknown,” etc.

The other day, somebody’s search brought them to my archived posts from October 2006 — translated into German. Seeing my own blatherings in a foreign language — too funny. I have no idea what I was talking about but I can rant and snarl in German with the best of them.

The comments on the posts are still in English, but all of the links are in German. The names of the sites might still be in English, especially if they're not translatable, but if you click on the link, all the text is in German.

And here (in case anyone could possibly be interested) is my entire blog — not just the October 2006 archives — translated into German.

But hey, enough about me. If you want to translate your own blog — or any website — into a foreign language, here's the menu. Or you can translate from a foreign language into English. You can select a website or just a block of text. It could come in handy for foreign-language newspapers. Knock yourself out.

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeez the way you cuss, it's a wonder they got anything at all. Can we do this in Urdu or Sanskrit?


Erik

October 19, 2007 at 12:12 AM  
Blogger Randal Graves said...

German. How appropriate for a LEFTY NAZI! Good luck with your hit counts, Adolf!

Just don't tell anyone I took German in high school.

October 19, 2007 at 5:07 AM  
Blogger LET'S TALK said...

I tried the English to German and found that my sidebar was located at the bottom of the page. I guess that's something else Iwill have to work on.

Thanks for that information and link Tom.

October 19, 2007 at 5:26 AM  
Blogger Praguetwin said...

That happened to me once, only it was Chinese.

Prague twin was eight characters. Figure that one out.

Btw, I don't check my meter anymore. I haven't time.

October 19, 2007 at 10:09 AM  
Blogger Tom Harper said...

Erik: Yeah, it must have been a challenge. That google site doesn't have a huge selection of languages; I doubt if Urdu or Sanskrit are available. It does have Japanese, Chinese and Korean, if that's any consolation.

Randal: Yup, German is a handy language for writing inflammatory posts. No matter what you're saying, it sounds like you're either barking or spitting or snarling.

Bet you don't remember much of your high school German. I took French in high school and it's all forgotten.

Let's Talk: That's funny that it would move your sidebar. That's a fun link to play with. I translated the French newspaper Le Monde into English yesterday.

Prague Twin: I've seen a few searches at my site where it was in Chinese and Arabic characters. But when they do that it's too incomprehensible to have any impact. I have just enough of a smattering of German that it was really bizarre to see which words got translated and which ones were left in English.

Eight characters for Prague Twin, huh? I think each syllable is one character, so I guess "Prague Twin" was a difficult concept for them to translate.

October 19, 2007 at 11:28 AM  
Blogger Randal Graves said...

Ich gehe in die Stadt. Wo ist meine brieftasche? That's about it. For some reason, we watched Sound of Music, too. Guess the teacher forgot the fucking thing was in English.

And you're right about the language. You could write the most beautiful, heartfelt love sonnet and it'll sound like you want to rip their fucking head off.

October 19, 2007 at 12:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"No matter what you're saying, it sounds like you're either barking or spitting or snarling."

Yeah it reminds me of the old joke of learning both Arabic and German so that you can Hock AND Spit

Erik

October 19, 2007 at 1:08 PM  
Blogger Tom Harper said...

Randal: Yup, that language has a harsh gutteral sound no matter what's being said. It's hard to imagine a German couple whispering sweet nothings to each other.

Erik: LOL. I never heard that before; that's just how both of those languages sound.

October 19, 2007 at 1:23 PM  

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