Translating an E-MAIL message

I've got just the person. Hang on a minute...

Have ya tried Babelfish?
http://www.babelfish.com

It contains links to where you can translate back and forth in lotsa diff languages. Just cut and paste. I use the links all the time.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I'm sorry I can only write in German. We operate several stores in Bavaria for Lion Apparel Germany. We would be very interested in LED lamps for our accessories section.

Please send us the postal or e-mail address of your German or European distributor.

Thank you very much for your help.

Sincerely,

Near the bottom of the page...

Above is from a professional German translater. Here is what a mechanical translation looks like:

Wrong does Ladies and Gentlemen, to me that I can write you only into German. We operate several Shop's in Bavaria in Germany for the company Lion Lion-Apparel Germany. For the accessory articles we would be strongly interested in LED lights. We would ask you us the address or E-Mail address German or euroepaeischen general representatives would call thank you for your efforts Yours sincerely.

Yeah - I know. Some ways to go still. But very handy when you don't have Mr Bavaria around, or can't afford a translator. Mech-german is still better than hotfoot-german anytime

Well isn`t that typical? After Craig going to the trouble of posting it here, then Darell and friend(?) translating it, the darned thing turns out to be another one of those "we think you`re a torch supplier" messages.
I get those too. And for light bulbs too. Ossacionally christmas lights. Despite the fact that on my site`s hompage and on sub-pages within, it clearly states I don`t sell anything.

Ideally we need a multi-lingual message saying "I am not a shop, there is nothing for sale here", that`d stop it...?

The thing my translator friend pointed out is that "museum" is the same word in both languages. And in neither language does it mean "store."

- Darell

Thanks for the translations. Kind of a pisser that all it turned out to be was internet trash though.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by hotfoot:
Have ya tried Babelfish?
http://www.babelfish.com

It contains links to where you can translate back and forth in lotsa diff languages. Just cut and paste. I use the links all the time.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

One must first know what language they're dealing with. Is it Norweigan? Dutch? German? I know it's something out of europe, but that's all. :-/

I can *usually* pick out spanish by looking at it (some words are recognised, like casa and agua), but not most of the others. Maybe there should be a class on "identifying foreign languages so you can plug them into babel fish".

What tipped me off was that I knew the German word for German. Plus I hang out with a German translater a lot....

Received an e-mail in a foreign language that I cannot read. Any takers?

Subject: Comments on LED Museum or LED research segment
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 21:18:07 +0200
From: "Leonhardt & Partner" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

es tut mir leid, dass ich Ihnen nur in deutsch schreiben kann. Wir betreiben
in Deutschland für die Firma Lion-Apparel Deutschland mehrere Shop´s in
Bayern. Für die Zubehörartikel wären wir stark an LED-Leuchten interessiert.

Wir würden Sie bitten uns die Adresse oder E-Mail-Anschrift des deutschen
oder euröpäischen Generalvertreter zu nennen

Vielen Dank für Ihre Bemühungen

Mit freundlichen Grüßen.