2. Lost in Translation
- Prepare a text that you want to use.
- Copy-and-paste this text to your word-processing clipboard.
- Go to a free Web translation site. Any of these will work fine:
- Babel Fish (try this one first, because it might be the easiest to use for our purposes)
- FreeTranslation.Com
- WorldLingo.Com
- T-Sail (This one only translates web sites. I'd suggest you work first with Babel Fish, FreeTranslation.Com, and WorldLingo.Com.)
- Insert your text where the Web translation site instructs you to place it.
- Pick a language you would like to translate this phrase into. Pick the first available language, because eventually you will be using all of the languages available on the site.
- As an example, pick "English to French."
- Click the "Translate" button.
- Once your text is translated into the non-English language, cut or copy the non-English version to your browser's clipboard.
- To continue the above example, cut or copy the French version to your browser's clipboard.
- Paste the non-English version in the translation box.
- To continue the above example, paste the French version to your browser's clipboard.
- Choose yet another non-English language in which to translate this current non-English version.
- To continue the above example, choose the "French to German" translation.
- Click the "Translate" button.
- Repeat the above steps using as many non-English versions as you can.
- As an example, once you have the German version, make a "German to Spanish" version. Continue using as many non-English versions as you can.
- Once you have used all the non-English languages available, translate your final version back into English.
- To continue the above example: if Spanish was your final version, then make your final translation: "Spanish to English."
- Copy-and-paste your final English result back to your word-processing program.
- "Polish" the text in terms of grammar, sentence, stanza, and/or verse structure.
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