Offside Unleashed: The Post in Which We Discuss the Merits of Combining Football, Google Translate, Poetry and Alcohol

By: Laurie | February 15th, 2009

Awhile back, I got linked to the following sad little gem about one of my favorite now-former players, Willy Sagnol:

Bayern: Not operated Sagnol sara’

December 9, 2008(HANDLE) – ROME, 9 DIC – the Bayern Monaco has announced today that the French defender Sagnol, injured person to stretches some of Achille, not subira’ a new operation.

I think we can all agree that English was probably not this article’s first language.

Did you understand it anyway? Really? And just how much alcohol have you consumed today?

If you’ve used language translation tools like Google Translate, you know that sobriety probably is not the best state for comprehension. It’s just easier after a drink. And even better after two. (Or, y’know, so I’ve heard.)

(After two, though? I’m guessing you’d get diminishing returns.)

If you’re not familiar with translation programs, they translate written words from Language A to Language B. This is very important to those of us who are blogging about a game which inspires worldwide passion. I use online translators a lot, and I know that many other Offside and WCB bloggers do too.

But, since language is complex, they don’t really give you an exact translation. What they really do is translate language A into to some kind of hybrid, in-between language. A language which could really use its own translation program. And since technology has not yet advanced that far, this is where alcohol comes in.

I haven’t actually tested this personally, but I’m pretty sure that when you combine alcoholic beverages with the above sentence, you can easily see that poor Willy (Bayern Munich) was not going to be undergoing the necessary operation to fix his Achilles tendon.

Tragic.

In fact, it’s so tragic and depressing that I’d rather not think about it. I’d rather entertain myself by Google translating soccer poetry. I believe this moment calls for a haiku.

Economic Tragedy

If he shaves his head,
Cristiano Ronaldo,
hair gel makers weep

Into Latvian:

Ekonomikas traģēdijas

Kad viņš shaves savas galvas,
Cristiano Ronaldo,
matu želeju veidotājiem rasināt

Latvian speakers? How did they do? Or maybe we can find out for ourselves by translating the Latvian back into English. (Because I’m way too easily amused.)

(Also? Pay attention here. You’ll need this part when you read the next post):

Economic TRAA £ Ä “Early

When viÅ † Å shaves his head,
Cristiano Ronaldo,
hair Å ¾ eleje build sized rasinę t

I’m looking at that picture of Cristiano’s hair and thinking “build sized raising,” makes perfect sense.

Or at least it would if I were drinking.

(Any funny online translation examples? Leave them in the comments.)

Offside Unleashed is a (relatively) new feature here at The Offside, where we bloggers are allowed to roam untethered around whatever territory we choose to venture into, provided we touch base back at the beautiful game occasionally.

And Laurie strongly believes that she deserves to be congratulated for having the self-control to not use this post to link back to this post, when it was entirely on topic.