Thanks to the Internet, sounding like a polyglot is easy. The question you have to ask yourself, especially when you don’t know what polyglot means, is do you want to sound like a polyglot. (Hint: You do.)

A polyglot is someone who uses more than one language. On the Internet, being a polyglot is easy thanks to a boatload of translation tools. Those tools take a word, sentence, diatribe, or entire web page, and translate it into a foreign tongue.

The first translation tool I used was Babelfish, provided by AltaVista, but now available from Yahoo. These days, however, I prefer to use the Google Language Tools.

The translation web pages work simply: Type in a word, sentence, or whatever. Choose the source language (such as English) and then the translation language. The result is, well, supposedly the same text in that other language.

I use the Google Language Tool all the time, often to translate email I get from foreign readers. It helps me get the gist of what they’re saying, and though I often try to translate my reply into the other language, I know that such a thing doesn’t often meet with success. That’s because most translations cannot be literal, and that’s all the computer is presently capable of doing.

There is a certain flavor to a language, a certain way to say things. You have to know the language to know intent, and not just take thoughts at their word-for-word meaning.

Examples of such mistranslations are common on the Internet. A famous one appeared at last summer’s Olympics in China:

The folks who owned the restaurant wanted to cater to foreign tourists, most of whom can’t read Chinese. The Chinese characters read kan-ting, which translates directly into our word canteen, or a place to get food. Regrettably, and to much comic relief, the restaurant owners obviously didn’t reverse translate the result, which was Translate server error. Still I think that makes for an interesting name for an eatery.

It reads even better in French: Traduire erreur de serveur

So enjoy playing with other languages. Give your text some foreign flare, and mislead innocent others into thinking that you’re a master of French or German — or Chinese! Do keep in mind, however, to check that reverse translation just in case!