From johnb Sent Fri, Apr 24th 1998, 16:10
I just found a site run by AltaVista search that will translate URLs or simple text from French, Italian, Spanish, German or Portuguese into English. It's definitely not perfect, and sometimes it takes a few tries to work, but it's probably worth it for those of you who've asked about this before... http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/translate? The mangled translations create some truly hilarious situations; we have fun at my office is finding the best (or worst) possible situations. Here's a sample... The text is a French biography of the '70s group Tai Phong, translated into English: <<<<<<<<<<<< In 1975, Khanh May and Tai Sinh, two Vietnamese brothers, have great musical projects. Khanh is a sound engineer, and Tai is bank clerk. In duet (called Monsoon), they already gained a musical championship of Island of France. However, in spite of this recognition and of the frequentations of Khanh in the musical medium, the gates of the houses of discs remain hopelessly closed. During one evening in mutual friends, Tai and Khanh meet Jean-Jacques. The power is on immediately between them. Jean-Jacques, unobtrusive but quite as able, musicalement speaking, as its two prédecesseurs in the group, does not have a problem of ego. Jean-Alain Gardet, who lives in the same building that Jean-Jacques, is in preparation HEC. He has a traditional formation jazz, and plays of the keyboards. Jean-Jacques persuades it to join the group. The repetitions take place at Khanh, and the group poses the bases of a symphonic rock'n'roll to the manner of Genesis of the same time. But the beater does not give satisfaction, and is thanked. A few days later, they meet Stephan Caussarieu, a beater of jazz which is just eighteen years old, which has just spent four years in the class of Kenny Clarke. While preserving their professional activity (Jean-Jacques works in Sport 2000 that manages Robert with Montrouge), Tai Phong repeats the evening and the weekends, in manner very conscientious and very professional way. Their first model is accepted by several houses of discs. The group does not return from there! That enables them to sign an advantageous contract with more reconciling, Warner. The group is managed by Domenica Lamblin, produced by Jean Mareska, and the realization is ensured by Khanh and Andy Scott. The first album comes out in 1975, and is called, sobrement, Tai Phong. The first extract, Sister Jane, commits a true success on the waves and in the discotheques. The album contains six titles (including one, Going Away, writing and composed by Jean-Jacques). Another 45 T, which contains titles which are not reproduced on the album (Yew You' re Headed North for Winter, written by Jean-Alain Gardet, and Let Custom Play, written by Jean-Jacques Goldman), comes out in parallel. Rock'n'roll ' N Folk sees in Tai Phong " the hope of the rock'n'roll made in France ". They must however wipe criticisms because they do not sing in French. They reticent that they are European, not specifically French. They make a passage noticed with television. >>>>>>>>>>>> Have fun. Maybe I'll hold a contest and award the best submissions. There could be separate categories for each language... .JohnBush.