Answer: Easily ;)
Indeed! :) The other quote, for that matter, is from the Hobbit:
The interesting thing is that the "come and have some more" eventually became just the question mark. At some point, it was "Too!", later "Too?" and in the end only "?". But I would say "Century, Tags, Obesity Bread of Love "and she Smiled!" is quite awkward change there :D

Indeed, 'awkward' doesn't begin to describe it!:D

But what do you make of this:
25 translations. Eönwë's forbidden to guess.:p

I don't think it's been done yet, so, at 25 translations:

Any guesses?:p

And I guess I am forbidden too. Hilarious, though!

Honestly puzzled :D

I'm afraid so...

I say!:D 'Bixu Xiang' sounds like it could be some place in Khand, or rather Far Rhûn, where the stars are different etc. Not sure that's canonical, though...

But d'you all know what, since this turning more and more into a quote quiz after all (and maybe predictably so, although I didn't foresee it when I started it) I've been thinking whether we shouldn't try to establish some order of procedure rather than go on posting new translations while there are still a lot unidentified. So if you think this is fun enough to continue, I suggest we* start a new thread in Quotable Quotes**, and either

• repost all hitherto unidentified quotes there, and whoever guesses the last one gets to ask a new one, or
• we all reveal the quotes to our hitherto unidentified translations on this thread, and start afresh on the other one.

Seeing how weird some of the results have turned out, it might also be wise to set a maximum of e.g. 10 or 25 translation rounds.
Thoughts, suggestions, criticism?
*(probably meaning myself, as the original thread owner, but I'd be perfectly fine with someone else doing it once we've agreed on how to handle it.)
**(Yes, Urwen, I know you've tried to do that already... shall we just say, great minds are sometimes ahead of their time and therefore misunderstood by their contemporaries?;))

Sounds like a good idea. How about we just reveal our quotes? Mine was "The Road Goes Ever On and On" - the Bixu Xiang showed up after a Chinese translation early on. :p

*major headdesk (or facepalm: I'm not sure which applies here, but meaning "I'd never have guessed that")*
Care to give some of the intermediate stages?

And thanks for the feedback. Maybe this has the potential for two threads - a quizzy one in QQ, and a more linguistically-minded one enquiring into how exactly these translations turn out the weird way they do. I'd be quite interested in the latter, and I imagine some others might be, too, but probably not that many - and if the thread turned into this direction, it might be considered misplaced in Mirth, and possibly off-topic altogether on a Tolkien forum:(. Comments, opinions (esp. by the Mods)?

A similar Game thread started already as early as 2000 Another mistranslation ! and lasted until 2005

And this one:Lost in Translation
People used this to translate, something very like the site Pitchwife found.

Ah, so I've once more re-invented the wheel, it seems. Serves me right for not searching. Thanks for the links, Guinevere! *goes browsing*

Just two more not-guessing ones
 

Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow, etc., became, after 25 translations "Tom Bombadil was a man full of shoes, blue and yellow jacket. Adam was arrested when he was gentelman. Play music and leg heal quickly." Hmm, I do not think Tom Bombadil would recognise it.
I tried one line, just one! And "Rowan mine, I saw you shine, upon the summer's day," becomes "Raun, I look to the summer," in ten translations. Sorry if I broke the rules by volunteering these.

Hi Orofarne, and welcome to the Downs if I haven't welcomed you yet!
Up to now, no rules about how to continue this have been agreed on, so you certainly can't have broken any.:)
Funny translations, anyway. You may or may not be aware of this, but Tom Bombadil's nature and identity has been a much discussed topic on these Downs, and one suggestion offered I don't know when & where by I don't know whom was that Tom & Goldberry represent an unfallen version of Adam & Eve, so I find it quite fascinating that 'Adam' would pop up in this context... wonder which language did that.
And this is rather off-topic Tolkienwise, but you inspired me to try
which after only 10 translations became
PS *points to your signature* Exactly!:D

Sorry for double-posting on my own thread, but this random quote from the upper left corner cried out to be translated, and the results were remarkably coherent, if somewhat surrealistic.
(Bilbo after discovering Smaug's weak spot in The Hobbit)
became after 10 translations (sorry if this isn't exactly family-friendly;)):
after 25:
after maximum of translations:
I'm sure Horatio Hornblower would have agreed.

Gollum weighs in on late night wars, canon, and cannons
 

quickly descends into Gollum becoming Conan. Highlights from 56 translations.

Not sure what party elections have to do with becoming a different person, Gollum.

Allow you Conan how :eek: Are you a celebrity stalker waiting to kidnap and murder them?

Make up your mind. First you are him, then you want the government to allow you to do something to him, now you're giving him away.

How do you Conan a situation?

What election? Who got elected?? Aragorn held elections??? WHAT??????????

What position? You and Smeagul can't agree on a thing.

Well, yes, the fact that you have multiple personalities and they can't agree with each other is canon.

There aren't options in canon. You two are never going to be anything but arguing with each other.

You don't have a choice. You're a fictional character. You do what the author says.

HEY! Why are you aiming a cannon at me? Wait what are you *bang*

Incredible!:eek::D
I noticed that the more translations, the shorter the quote gets i.e. the more words get left out. I wonder why.

I love how "Conan" appears out of nowhere, eventually becomes "Canon", and finally ends up as "cannon".

Of course, neither Conan nor cannons are in the Canon.

Of course, we do not see the data in the dark! "The Hobbit" is being held in the evening because it would undermine the rain, I know!

Does anybody else love how it translates to "The Hobbit?"

A rather obvious one here:

What kind of things, to break the path of wisdom.

And now, translating from the famous Upper-Left-Hand Corner:

Dark place, not our destination if we really live, the right to retain or lose, but the problem is less a breakthrough.

1. ------ see every page, I can not go to the final cost of any change in our music, however.

2. Have a friend or an enemy, the devil Annick Election Guide, or the death of another person in the world can do without laws, and love in hell or evil, or God, not the power of the game, not ----- Taoyan protect children, but in either steal or find a ---------.

Names that didn't change removed.

Wow. This gets insane at large amounts of translations (which I didn't try before since it took a while to do even the minimum 10 translations from my iPad, which is what I was posting from before).

And yes, that came from TOLKIEN.

And the whopper:

For reference, that's the first six lines (it wouldn't let me enter the rest) of the poem about Strider. I'm giving you the answer on this one because I think it's frankly impossible to guess.

is translated from

Since this can alllllmost be guessed, I'll leave it alone. :P

I think something didn't get translated back . . . Maybe there wasn't an equivalent for it in English? That happened once when it translated something to Arabic - it showed one of the words in English.

post the originals, people, this isn't quotable quotes forum ;)
 

Original text:

...30 translations later we get:
Hey this sounds like a regular movie script :P

Also:

Original text:

...20 translations later we get:

This is strange, I picked an 'easier' passage on purpose and it got even more messed up than a difficult one (if the degree of 'mess-up' can even be accurately measured with these things...)

The original

after 10 translations

after 56 translations

How random is that?

*Note: apparently 'Dani' is a word that's untranslateable.

Nice to see this thread is still providing amusement!

This has to be the oath of the Fëanorians:
Some intriguing name changes there, especially "the devil Annick". Wonder where that came from...:D

Here's another quote of the day:
After 10 translations:
After the maximal 56:

Why wouldn't it? The things here are hilarious!:D Thank you, Pitchie, for such a great thread!:)

after 10 translations turned to be

The original

after 30 translations became

Yep, that's it.

"Saruman is a fool, and a dirty treacherous fool. But the eye is on him."

Became after 50 translations:

"Obunsaruman quickly disappear. But in the public eye."

And "Nonetheless they will have need of wood." , a relatively simple line, became:

"By J. Wood"

The funniest translation I had yet:
 

"The road goes ever on and on" --> "way better than before" (10 translations)

And I randomly typed in "Lothlorien", and it became "Ross, Lauri wine." There were a few yen in the middle. :p
Silverlode became "Filo reasons."
Elanor and niphredil became "Nifredil stadium."
Cerin Amroth became "Cherry Delight."
Anduin was the worst one - "Drosibas vyenlaisigi agent?"
Arwen Evenstar="Status of the stadium."

Tell you something about the place, doesn't it?

PS: "The Lord of the Rings" turns out to be "Health". :rolleyes: