Tuesday, August 21, 2007

S.O.S School

Some years ago I received an e-mail at work from a gentleman in Brazil who was hoping to start a children's museum in his town. As far as I can tell, he was asking for advice and tried to use machine translation to convert his Portuguese to English. The results, as you can see, are nearly unintelligible:
Expensive Mr. Josh Brandt I was happy in receiving its email and of its availability in helping me. As same Mr. it said that much information to be changed by email, I ask to it what voçê suggests me. My dream and power to mount a museum for child in the molds of the theory of Multiple Intelligences. E I do not make the lesser idea as to make a museum. It helps me.
I just think that's pretty fantastic. By the way, you've seen the Uzbeki dish detergent, right?

Postscript: I just realized that the "My dream and power" line must originally have been O meu sono é poder..., meaning "My dream is to be able." But of course e also means "and," and poder also means "power," whence the hilarity.

For those of you who enjoy mistranslation by computers, you must check this out. Good for endless hysterics.

1 comment:

Ron said...

That's hilarious!