A new weekly "name that tune" series with a twist. Can you reconstruct the original lyric after its translation through half a dozen languages and identify the song?
Very interesting idea! As a professional translator, you may find it of interest to know that what you are proposing to do is actually an "official" translation technique called back translation. Sometimes one has to deviate from the source text and language so as to give the message as much "air" and dynamism in the target language as possible. A good trick (taught at graduate translation courses) is precisely to back translate into the source language to make sure you haven't deviated too much.
I have no idea what your mysterious lyric could be, but can't wait to find out!
That’s very interesting Andy, thanks for letting me know that! I was amazed how many of the lyrics I back translated actually came out extremely close to what I initially input. After iterations through six different languages! Clearly the translation tools are doing a great job although I’m starting to see patterns on where they go wrong.
They are indeed getting more accurate especially in some language combinations. I can see how, with poetry or lyrics, the results aren’t too far from the original on the sentence level, as most sentence structures in songs are relatively simple (from a grammatical standpoint). You don’t tend to have a lot of subordinates or qualifying clauses in songs (as is the case in contracts and other legal texts) so it’s not too hard for the software to “stay on track”. However, what’s going to be particularly interesting (at least for me and other language nerds) is to see how precise the machine is when it comes to semantic fields and nuance in words. The on/of discrepancy in the Prince song, for example, is something that may seem trivial to some readers, but would guarantee a fail at uni (or an angry project manager/QA/editor).
The proof of the pudding, if I can hazard a guess, will be in the specific words. The devil is in the detail!
Love the idea!! I had a student do this with a paper a few classes ago! I couldn’t even read it - I’d had students take a thesaurus to a plagiarized paper before, but never encountered one I just couldn’t even read like that - I sent it to my faculty chair and he said the student had run it through a translator into a different language and then back to English.
I’m going to have to think on the lyrics today to see if I can come up with anything! Champagne Super Nova came into my mind (not exactly sure why), but going to have to listen and look at the lyrics for that one and a couple of others.
Wow that’s wild that the student put it through a translator app! It must just be absolutely exhausting to deal with papers in the age of AI. I feel for you!
Not Champagne Supernova but give it some more thought!
Oh don’t even get me started on the AI papers!! Hahaha! Students aren’t even plagiarizing by copy and pasting or buying papers anymore! I’m finishing grading a first round of papers today that I should have had graded yesterday, but I procrastinate soooo much now because I absolutely hate grading papers now!
Very interesting idea! As a professional translator, you may find it of interest to know that what you are proposing to do is actually an "official" translation technique called back translation. Sometimes one has to deviate from the source text and language so as to give the message as much "air" and dynamism in the target language as possible. A good trick (taught at graduate translation courses) is precisely to back translate into the source language to make sure you haven't deviated too much.
I have no idea what your mysterious lyric could be, but can't wait to find out!
That’s very interesting Andy, thanks for letting me know that! I was amazed how many of the lyrics I back translated actually came out extremely close to what I initially input. After iterations through six different languages! Clearly the translation tools are doing a great job although I’m starting to see patterns on where they go wrong.
They are indeed getting more accurate especially in some language combinations. I can see how, with poetry or lyrics, the results aren’t too far from the original on the sentence level, as most sentence structures in songs are relatively simple (from a grammatical standpoint). You don’t tend to have a lot of subordinates or qualifying clauses in songs (as is the case in contracts and other legal texts) so it’s not too hard for the software to “stay on track”. However, what’s going to be particularly interesting (at least for me and other language nerds) is to see how precise the machine is when it comes to semantic fields and nuance in words. The on/of discrepancy in the Prince song, for example, is something that may seem trivial to some readers, but would guarantee a fail at uni (or an angry project manager/QA/editor).
The proof of the pudding, if I can hazard a guess, will be in the specific words. The devil is in the detail!
This is a fantastic idea, Mark! Lyrics aren’t my strong suit (hence my love for disco, haha), but I’m excited to see the reactions—and the solutions!
Thanks Pe! Hopefully people will enjoy it. I’m interested to see if takes off!
I didn't recognize the song but, interestingly, putting the translated lyrics into google does get me to the original song (I think)
Ah, I was wondering if anyone would do that! I’d tested out some of the others on my list but not this one.
Same! Hahahaha I had to. I never would have guessed it.
This is gonna be fun!
...and I'm totally stumped on what this week's song is.
Love the idea!! I had a student do this with a paper a few classes ago! I couldn’t even read it - I’d had students take a thesaurus to a plagiarized paper before, but never encountered one I just couldn’t even read like that - I sent it to my faculty chair and he said the student had run it through a translator into a different language and then back to English.
I’m going to have to think on the lyrics today to see if I can come up with anything! Champagne Super Nova came into my mind (not exactly sure why), but going to have to listen and look at the lyrics for that one and a couple of others.
Wow that’s wild that the student put it through a translator app! It must just be absolutely exhausting to deal with papers in the age of AI. I feel for you!
Not Champagne Supernova but give it some more thought!
Oh don’t even get me started on the AI papers!! Hahaha! Students aren’t even plagiarizing by copy and pasting or buying papers anymore! I’m finishing grading a first round of papers today that I should have had graded yesterday, but I procrastinate soooo much now because I absolutely hate grading papers now!
Sounds like a bit of a nightmare to be honest. Wow!
I am a music child of the 60’s/70’s, so any thing recent … wild guess (without looking at lyrics on line) Achtung Baby - U2?
Not a bad guess. But not correct 😃
I think I know what it is. Are we supposed to share our guesses in the comments? Maybe with a Spoiler Alert heading?
Feel free to share your guesses in the comments! A spoiler alert’s not a bad idea though
Is it “Fame” by Irene Cara?
Great song but not the right one!