For the non-spanish speaking

Babelfish "es peligroso en las manos incorrectas" [sic]

Tonynocker said:

http://world.altavista.com/If you are looking to translate a phrase that you cant find on the web. This sight [sic] is great when you are preparing for the DR.

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DR1 occasionally gets people who try to fake Dominican Spanish in their posts by using a machine translation service like Alta Vista. But they can be spotted almost immediately by anyone who actually speaks Spanish. Little things like very small ambiguities in the way you word the original phrase in English cause incorrect translations.

I'll let you find the rest, but as an example: "No officer I don't want to spend the night in jail" to "Ning?n oficial que no deseo pasar la noche en c?rcel"

This is nonsense. That's because "No officer" is being translated to "Ningun oficial" which does not meaan "No" as in the opposite of "Yes". In this case "Ningun oficial" would be closer to "Not any officer". "Ningun" means "no one"!

It's even confusing trying to explain why that's wrong. Did you get it?

Had you entered: "No! Officer I don't want to spend the night in jail" you get back: "?No! El oficial I no desea pasar la noche en c?rcel" which also is incorrect, note the "I", but closer. Change it once more to "No! Officer, I don't want to spend the night in jail." and you finally get something that's not laughable "?No! Oficial, no deseo pasar la noche en c?rcel." Although the still the words used are a bit off for common Dominican Spanish.

Tom aka XR

Asians have a funny habit of dubbing english movies into their local language, and then putting in english subtitles provided by unchecked machine translations.

This is known on the internet as "Engrish". What you have posted above is the Spanish equivelant of Engrish. Run a web search for some classic Engrish phrases if you want a laugh.

When I was studying at PUCMM I had some friends who would do this for laughs and we had inside phrases like:

Esto esta frio (That's cool)
Nos vemos en la caida (see you in the fall)
Me da una bruja de arena con Jamon y Queso (give me a ham and cheese sandwich)

Lmao!

MrMike said:

Me da una bruja de arena con Jamon y Queso (give me a ham and cheese sandwich)

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I never liked trying to make "sandwich" sound like "sanweeesh". I am using that one! Bruja de arena! LOL! Sorry, but I always did love puns.

Tom aka XR