Lost In Translation

There's a new Jane Austen biopic coming out soon, and naturally they've condensed the already-short life of one of England's wittiest writers into little more than a love story. Fairly dull lives lived by fairly ordinary people (in spite of their talents) never seem to translate well to film - so I decided to do some Jane Austen translating of my own.

Using the always-reliable Google translate, I popped in one of Austen's most famous lines, jumbled it into foreign gobbeldy-gook, and magically turned it back into English again. Let's see which language manages to stay truest to the original!

The Original: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

Lots of commas and full of sarcasm. Just the way I like it.

Arabic and Back: "It is universally acknowledged, and the fact that the heart of one man carries God must want of a wife."

True to form, Arabic manages to turn a sentence about gold diggers into something about men carrying God in their hearts. Get over yourselves!

French and Back: "It is a universally recognized truth, that a simple man in possession of a good fortune, must be inside want of a wife."

Single turns to simple and the next thing you know he's inside of her. Dirty, dirty French.

German and Back: "It is one confirmed truth, the one individual man in the possession of a luck, must inside its wishes of a woman."

Germans seem to be big on independence and luck. Weren't so lucky in the 20th century, were you Germany?

Japanese and Back: "That is recognized the wife being necessary, generally, the single person who owns that good fortune, there is a truth, it becomes, is."

This makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

Russian and Back: "This is generally true that one person owns a fortune, must be in want of a wife."

And we have a winner! I was betting on French or German to remain the most true, but Russia pulls and upset and wins the prize! The prize being capitalism and screenings of a Jane Austen biopic no one could afford to see, even if they wanted to.