I have a friend, an older lady in our church, who emigrated here from Cuba when she was about 18. She doesn't read English, though she speaks and understands fairly well. She really wants to learn how to knit, but when she signed up for a class at Michael's, they wouldn't let her skip buying the book even though she couldn't use it. I've taught her a little bit, but you really need some basic stuff written down, at least at first.
She wants to make baby booties for a grandchild, so for Christmas, I got her a set of needles and some yarn. I typed out the directions and then pasted them into this free translation tool. Knowing a teeny bit about translation, I emailed the results to a Spanish-speaking friend for a reality check. She translates English into Spanish for Children's Hospital.
She wrote me back and said the translation I got back was incomprehensible. Just for grins, I pasted the free translation back into the tool and had it translate the Spanish back into English. She was right. Here are the best gems...
Fot "Next row: Purl 9 (11:13) stitches, turn. " I got "Next row: Dagger 9 (11:13) the puntadas, the return."
For "Cast off" I got "Throw far away." (I laughed out loud at that one!)
For this paragraph,
"To Make Up:
Weave in all ends along the work, not up the side as this will cause a lumpy edge. Lay work out and gently steam. Join the heal and the foot with a flat seam. Roll over the top edge and stitch down at the back seam with a single stitch to keep the roll edge in position.
I got:
"To Compose: Weaves in all finishes for the work, not up the side as this will cause a lumpy edge. The work layman was and smoothly vapor. A the priest and the foot with a flat dressmaking. Roll on the edge and the puntada first downward in the dressmaking of back with A single puntada to maintain the edge of the roll in the position."
Isn't that weird that it took "heal" as in body part and turned it into "priest?" And "purl" became "dagger." Languages are very complex and interesting things. I wish I knew more than just English!
