(To my that imports me?)!
One of the catchiest songs I've heard in a long time is Pitbull's "The Anthem." I've been playing it pretty regularly for the past few weeks, but I've become intrigued by the songs two Spanish verses (the middle one is in English.) I have no problem getting down with a song I don't understand, but since I have taken three years of Spanish in high school and have actually visited Madrid, Spain, I've been trying to pick out pieces of the song that I can understand.
This hasn't been going well.
When I was forced to constantly use the language when I was in Europe my skills were much stronger than they are now (which is to say, they were still pretty weak.) But I've been out of practice ever since so trying to decipher entire song stantzas has been nearly impossible.
That's when I went to freetranslations.com.
I've used this site many times over the years with varying degrees of success. The site is good for small assignments like single words or ever entire phrases, but longer blocks of text it's almost useless at. Knowing his going in, I still tried to copy and paste the verses from the song into the translator. Here's what the first verse came out like:
Mommy, the black Mommy, the black Mommy, the black Mommy, the black Mommy, the black one this rabid one, the wants your azucar and your you are not given her That dark one this tasty one and when your touch it she goes crazy Mommy the black one this rabid one the wants your azucar and your are not given her That dark one this tasty one and when your touch it she goes crazy Mommy that basket what wants the black one? (To my that imports me?!) I what want is that lunatic (you give him give him lunatic) Mommy that basket what wants the black one? (To my that imports me?!) I what want is that lunatic (you give him give him lunatic)
Yikes. I think I get the general idea (or do I?) Just for fun, I decided to try to translate this new English text back into Spanish back into English using their translator once again. The result was something that was almost the same, but slightly more forceful-sounding ("wants" has been changed to "need" and then later to "desires"). Here's what came out the other side:
The mommy, the black Mommy, the black Mommy, the black Mommy, the black Mommy, the black one this rabid one one, the needs their azucar and their you is not given That darkness a this tasty one one and when their sound she goes crazy Mommy the black one this rabid one one the needs their azucar and their they are not him given That darkness a this tasty one one and when their sound She goes crazy Mommy that basket what desires the black one? (To my that imports me?)! I what desires is that lunatic (you give he gives him lunatic) Mommy that basket what desires the black one? (To my that imports me?)! I what desires is that lunatic (you give he gives him lunatic)