So Dieter wrote up a review of Google Translate’s shiny new, iPhone optimized WebApp, and it intrigued me enough to check it out. Since I live in Montreal, French was the first language I decided to try out. Since I’m damaged and have issues that would make Lucy jack her price up to 50 cents, the very first thing I tried to translate was: “leave me alone.”

And what did Google Translate’s WebApp say “leave me alone” was in French? “leave me alone”. Oui-mais-wha?

Curious, I went from MobileSafari to desktop Safari, and what did translate.google.com tell me? “leave me alone”. German didn’t work either. Spanish and Dutch, however, did.

Kicker: “me dejen solo” from Spanish to French? You guessed it! “leave me alone”.

Well, if I ever get pounced on by our local language police, I can always try to tell them Google says “leave me alone” is perfectly acceptable French!

(For the record, Yahoo! Babel Fish actually offers a translation, if somewhat formally: “laissez-moi seul”)

Is this a known bug? I silent plea for help from an overworked Googler? A strange Babylonian plot? Or just one of many glitches in the system?

Have you run into any crazy Google mistranslations?

Google Translate Won’t “Leave Me Alone”? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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