I have come to the conclusion that the people who wear AC/DC T-shirts are good , interesting people. Even if they are not, I have a great excuse to find out by starting up a conversation about one of my favourite bands.

I did just that this very weekend and as a result I have ended up in an email language exchange with a Japanese person. I email in English and she emails in Japanese. This is just peachy but unfortunately my Japanese is awful. So I basically have to make educated guesses to work out what she is trying to say. Often I think I have understood but it would be nice to check, so I head to Yahoo! Babelfish.

Now, I know that sometimes when you translate from French or Spanish to English, there are problems with word order and grammar but I was not prepared for the hilarity and confusion that translating from Japanese would cause.

For example, here is the original Japanese:

イギリスのごはんはにほんであまりたべられないもんねー
はじめてきいたよ、そのごはん。おいしそうだね

Which I think means something along the lines of:

“English food is not really eaten in Japan. It’s the first time I’ve heard of these meals. They (could be/ sound?) tasty.”

But what I got through Babelfish was:

“Don’t you think? as for the English boiled rice excessively it is the spoon [re] the potato it is in Japan, – it was effective for the first time, that boiled rice. Don’t you think? tastily so is”

Which made my brain explode.