Some time ago I had a problem: how to manage my two separate WordPress blogs, Polish and English, into one domain. First idea was boringly conventional – split the domain’s content into separate language sub-blogs. But suddenly, on a beautiful morning, a question came and asked me over a cup of coffee – Don’t you think that the idea of a “switch to another language” is getting a bit outdated?

I had to admit that was true. We witness some major changes in how the language is being perceived. This has made me believe, that the idea of a blog’s language mash-up is going to be accepted.

Let’s see:

• We are living in times of over-content. Therefore everybody needs to develop the skill of selecting useful information – or skipping useless one. We are focused on finding proper content and ignore the rest (like information delivered in a language we don’t understand). So different language chunks at one page – is there anyone, who still gets irritated with that?

• More and more bloggers use translation widgets – to make the content available as a working translation for those, who don’t understand blog’s language. This is obviously applying to English bloggers, who are world’s most influencial. See the example of Paulo Coelho blog.

• We see nicknames, profile names, locations which sound international (not English) and accept them, although we don’t understand the meaning.

• We are living in times of a mash-up. Remixing web content is something usual these days. Mixing video, text, pictures… why not language.

Language mash-up? This is solving a lot of my problems! And this is so good for a creativity!

Zobaczmy:

• I don’t have to double my entries. When I think English is better, I write in English. Kiedy chcę pisać po polsku, piszę po polsku.

• The issue of blog elements, like widgets, plugins not available in Polish is solved – or to be precise: ignored.

• Już po wyborze języka czytelnicy mogą wywnioskować, do kogo w pierwszej kolejności skierowany jest wpis. Kiedy używam angielskiego, może to oznaczać, że zainteresuje to również anglojęzycznych czytelników. And they just choose English entries at this blog.

• Language becomes somehow dynamic. Pick up English words/links to go to English content. They are on every page. Just spot them. Select them. Don’t bother about the rest. Możesz również kliknąć na angielski tekst w innym celu – by sprawdzić, jak daję sobie radę z tym językiem. A muszę stwierdzić, że dzięki językowej anarchii właśnie pozbywam się przekonania, że mój angielski nie jest wystarczająco dobry. Jest wystarczająco dobry na jeden wpis z dziesięciu. I to jest piękne.

• Blog’s language mash-up is another reflection of my need to break language barriers. I think I’ve got something important to say. Do I have to be a perfect American guru to get some attention? No chyba nie. I wcale nie uważam, że świat musi zmierzać w kierunku Your language » English. Yes, I think this is tremendously important to give a chance for the rest of the world to be listened. There are really worthy ideas at this side of a translating script.

I’m glad I’ve overcome the conventional guy in me. Drinking coffee and writing this post I think this is beautiful, that I can find words “book” and “książka” on the same page of this blog. Don’t you think?

Well, I think this is the right day to do it. I’ll Google-translate every piece of my today’s life and share it through my “I, Google-translated” profile on Twitter.

I woke up in beta mood, what means I don’t know who am I supposed to be in general. This is a perfect match. Beta stage is typical for 99% of Google products, including Google Translate Beta. The last one is my favourite, when it comes to think about technology-related absurd I’m exploring as a writer. When one wants to be a real tech-absurdist, he needs to be involved in what he is writing about. He needs to be a part of an absurd process. Google Translate Beta, with all all those automatically generated language mistakes is a great way to do is.

So my way to explore tech-absurd is not only write about it, but actually – write it (this would be a nice golden thought, if only I knew what I meant).

You can read more about Google-translated fiction here and here. You can follow my Google-translated updates here.

That’s why I started another Twitter profile (sorry Twitterers). The idea is simple as that: I write a tweet in Polish, translate it using Google Translate and send it to Twitterland. The big challenge is to self-experience a touch of tech-absurd in everything I do – or, to be more precise – everything I want to share with other people. I’m pulling my life through a translating script – and this is the whole artistic idea behind “I, Google-translated”.

Already, having more than 70 Google-translated tweets, I can say, that Mr GT, as I call him, can bring something I was not expecting. It can bring a fresh breeze of simplicity to life. When you’re sometimes lost with your feelings and thoughts and when you want to share it with Mr GT, you discover that this can happen the-one-and-only way – unless you change the original text. This is good. People tend to complicate things. Mr Google script tends to simplify, I like it.

Another learning is addressing a famous stupidity of Google-translated texts (or auto-translated texts in general). In my case those sometimes really grotesque and ridiculous translations are a description of the current-me in my current life. And similar to other people laughing at Google translations, I’m laughing as well – and things get a bit brighter, especially for a Dumas-Sartre-sculptured personality like me. It’s like you realize, that Mr GT can disarm a bomb you made yourself for no reason. So far – I like it very much.

And a final observation: how much is lost in communication between me and Mr Google Translate. Here is a risky part, please comment on that: I can say, that the level of information, which is lost in communication between a human and a Google script is comparable to the level of human-to-human communication. I’m not a researcher, I’m a writer. I write what I feel – and I feel that the translations can roughly deliver what I mean. Same as a person, who is not listening. And this is my discovery: Google Translate is designed to do, what people tend to avoid – to listen and understand.

There are all the conclusions for now. Below here is a list of some rules I stick to, when running this project:

• I’m not following anybody on Twitter from this account. That means, that everybody, who is following “I, Google-translated” is 100% interested in this idea and all its absurdity,
• I’m not making any correction to translated tweets, no matter how they sound,
• If I want to have a better translation, I have to rephrase and make another tweet out of it.

Luckily I’m an absurdist, or at least I pretend to be one. What I write in Polish is more or less absurd. And here the helping hand came from Google Translate Beta. It stroke my mind: why not trying that? This would be in a style I obviously do things (no sense at all), which at the same time is designed to spot things around us, which don’t make sense either, but we don’t know it (some sense).

The simple fact is, that Google translations are going to hugely influence the world communication. To the point nobody would care about bad automatic translations, as they serve one crucial purpose: help you understand what you don’t – quickly and roughly, but extensively enough to get the knowledge you need. This leads to another result: people will accept the GT language world. Reading Google-translations will become another skill, nobody will complain about it. The influence on our lives will be so huge, that inevitably someone somewhere will turn it into a Great Literature Thing. And I will surely be satisfied with pretesting this at GT Beta stage from remote location, Józefina, Poland.

GT fiction – first trial

I have a great short story to start with – “Wishes Shovel Best”. It’s about a SMS service which sends messages containing few accidental words, like “wishes” + “shovel” + “best”. This is a hard test on Google. It would be much easier to translate something, which makes sense into something which doesn’t. But what to do with a story, which doesn’t look to have any sense in a first place?

Below there are three versions of a story. First one is translated by Anna Etmańska. The second one is a single GT from Polish to English (1Google-translated). The next one is a translation from Polish to English, then backwards, and then back again (3Google-translated). Obviously in the near future I’ll try to make next steps into the absurd world of GT fiction. I can imagine 17GT this year.

Human-translated

Wishes Shovel Best

On Christmas Eve Sławek Przekośniak received an SMS with these wishes: “Wishing yo good ping super new”. He didn’t know who sent him that surprisingly enigmatic message. And he doesn’t know to this day. A pity, because thanks to that person he reached his current status and number 67 on the list of the wealthiest Poles.

Back then, during that beautiful, rusty white Christmas Eve night, Przekośniak, who was rudely kicked out from a social network for utopian fanatics of extreme phobias (www.ilovefobia.pl) just a few days earlier, got an idea.

It was a quite good idea too, and the next SMS (“All at cart by unintentionally only honest lamb”) convinced him it was the best idea of his life. »read the rest of the story

1Google-translated

Best wishes spade

Slawek Przekośniak got to wiligię SMS wishes: “I Zycze good ping fajno new. Do not know who sent him this surprisingly enigmatic message. Do not know to this day, and the injury – that the person owes its present status and the first on the list of 67 richest Poles.

Then, in a beautiful white and russet wigilijny evening, Przekośniak, a few days earlier ejected from the site for fanatics utopijnych extreme phobias (www.ilovefobia.pl), came on a concept.

It was a good idea, and the next text message ( “Happy dray accidentally only a sincere lamb”) utwierdził convinced him that it was the idea of life. »read the rest of the story

3Google-translated

Best wishes shovel

Slawek Przekośniak got to wiligię SMS wishes: “I wish you good ping fajno new. I do not know who sent him the surprisingly mysterious message. I do not know to this day, and the damage – that person owes its present status and the first on the list of 67 richest Poles.

Then, in a beautiful white and russet wigilijny evening Przekośniak, a few days earlier ejected from the site for fanatics utopijnych extreme phobias (www.ilovefobia.pl), came on the concept.

It was a good idea, and the following text message ( “Happy dray accidentally only sincere lamb”) utwierdził convinced him that it was the idea to life. »read the rest of the story

Best wishes shovel

Slawek Przekośniak got to wiligię SMS wishes: “I wish you good ping fajno new. I do not know who sent him the surprisingly mysterious message. I do not know to this day, and the damage – that person owes its present status and the first on the list of 67 richest Poles.

Then, in a beautiful white and russet wigilijny evening Przekośniak, a few days earlier ejected from the site for fanatics utopijnych extreme phobias (www.ilovefobia.pl), came on the concept.

It was a good idea, and the following text message ( “Happy dray accidentally only sincere lamb”) utwierdził convinced him that it was the idea to life.

Slawek Przekośniak decided to sign up with your colleague from the Czech Republic Ilovefobia.pl corridors, an online service that can send requests for cell phones. The main advantage of this service is that the content would not be fixed in advance, not wybierało them from the list, but were created with random words internauty according to the guidelines by the specially developed for this program. This would allow you to send wishes of the original, and no one said that they must be understood.

The development program, which called for working with John Discworld, addressed the Czesiek. He had this experience – portal for [wstaw_słowo] fobów developed a program of lay joy during the demonstration. The program, although the wording offered completely devoid of logic, enjoyed great popularity, and the most affected by the street terms, you might see on television ( “Down there is injury,” “Until today wora won today”).

The future success of the two men had to work hard and want SMS portal www.najnajnaj.pl immediately by Easter holidays.

One of the first users and enthusiasts of the parties was Ramon Kęstowicz from the popular girls-band Puszysteron. Do not want to write their wishes, and therefore came to najnajnaj.pl and completed a short form. Under the heading “The words appear in the text” to “egg” and “Wesoly” in the “Number of additional words” – 3 Two days later received a phone call from friends, chwalących it as extremely creative texts wishes. It was that which offers:

“Wesoła goats czacha eggs stench”

“Egg cattle wesolego wedge beautiful”

“Ammeters chlapnij wesolego oligocenska jajem”

“Wesoly not kept in the bud postmodernism”

Coming soon is “the most innovative pre-Internet years,” according to the magazine’s Web site, starting at N. Average balanced parallel redirected trójklikalność exclusive parties quickly reached a level of 34.98 and is growing at an impressive pace. Czesiek developed a special mod to the wishes for Mother’s Day and it was shot at home – weekly Przepuść wishes to put “Mom left disease Bingo” in the quote week. From that day started with uncontrolled popular services. Mobile operators have begun to feel a drop in income from charges for sending text messages, but fears Sławek offered them a share in profits – in exchange for doinwestowanie and transfer of modern technologies.

Czesiek two fashion: imieninowy and birth, and then focused on a sense of well-spełnionego obligation to view pages from creeping thing destitution, with the result that Sławek only place on the 67 richest Poles. Only the fact that the Czech wyrzucił then (there are enough Machiavellian way – by sending a text message: “You are cool kapencjusz finito”) resulted in that appeared in place of 67 But it was only his sole and exclusive on the sole criterion. I even thanked his wife did not get the prize “Inzapbizu” the years for which it was and continues to this all the time lobbował.

To give an opportunity to gain happiness and even greater fame, was sent Przekośniak, claiming to be “Wielbicielkę, SMS and chief editors of newspapers and the well-known politicians, men of culture, show-business, science, health, nutrition, care pot plants; dance teachers and tango qualadora defense parawirtualnego, philosopher and friend of the shop with a valuable paluszkami serowymi.

As you might expect, the reaction was spontaneous, euforyczna and clearly in favor. With one exception – policies associated with the head of its domestic service, wheels parliamentary mobile phone number 0-609-3459812 known because of the lack of a sense of humor, bad intentions author received a text message, sounding “best wishes shovel.” The case went to the calendar and the Committee on Security.

It took ten months. In his new residence, at the top, (used here to the ninth floor) Przekośniak przymierzał new przetykany titanium-kevlarową thread-like black suit samoukładający up. He had the evening to receive awards for “Przekobizu” page for a year (for “Inzapbiz” can not wait).

67. the list of the richest Poles like himself in the mirror. Przećwiczył smile and step, verify that the card is in your pocket with the text of speeches and wygładził incomprehensible to the belly bulge. Welcome to wlał glass remain open two weeks ago of French wine and see the glory of his impressive face, said:

- Health by foreign throat bell.

At that time podjechały into a black limousine Przekośniakówkę Security Agency.

Best wishes spade

Slawek Przekośniak got to wiligię SMS wishes: “I Zycze good ping fajno new. Do not know who sent him this surprisingly enigmatic message. Do not know to this day, and the injury – that the person owes its present status and the first on the list of 67 richest Poles.

Then, in a beautiful white and russet wigilijny evening, Przekośniak, a few days earlier ejected from the site for fanatics utopijnych extreme phobias (www.ilovefobia.pl), came on a concept.

It was a good idea, and the next text message ( “Happy dray accidentally only a sincere lamb”) utwierdził convinced him that it was the idea of life.

Slawek Przekośniak decided to sign up with your colleague from the Czech Ilovefobia.pl corridors, an online service, which could send requests for cell phones. The most important advantage of the service would be that the wishes of the content was not determined in advance, not wybierało them from the list, but were created with random words internauty according to guidelines by the specially developed for this program. This would allow you to send wishes of the original, and nobody is not told that they must be understood.

Development of the program, which called working with John Discworld, addressed the Czesiek. He had this experience – the portal for [wstaw_słowo] fobów developed a program to lay joy at the demonstration. The program, although the wording offered completely devoid of logic, enjoyed great popularity, and the most hit street slogans can be seen on television ( “Down there injury away,” “For them today wora won today”).

The future success of the two men took to the hard work and wishes portal SMS www.najnajnaj.pl started immediately by the Easter holidays.

One of the first users and enthusiasts hand, it was Ramon Kęstowicz from the popular girls-band Puszysteron. Do not want to write their wishes, therefore, entered the najnajnaj.pl and has completed a short form. Under the heading “Words to appear in the content of the” inherent “egg” and “Wesoly” in the “Number of additional words” – 3 Two days later received a phone number from friends, chwalących it as extremely creative texts wishes. It was what it boasts:

“Wesola goats czacha egg stench”

“Egg cattle wesolego wedge beauteous”

“Ammeters chlapnij wesolego oligocenska jajem”

“Wesoly not kept in the egg of postmodernism”

Shortly service was “the most innovative pre-Internet years”, according to the magazine Web sites starting at N. Average balanced parallel redirected trójklikalność exclusive parties quickly reached a level of 34.98 and grow in an impressive pace. Czesiek developed a special mod to the wishes for Mother’s Day and it was a shot in the home – weekly Przepuść put the wishes of “Mom left bingo disease” in the quote box week. From that day began with uncontrolled popular service. Mobile operators have begun to feel a drop in revenue from fees for text messages, but wary Sławek offered them a share in the profits – in exchange for doinwestowanie and transfer of modern technologies.

Czesiek yet developed two fashion: imieninowy and birthday, and then focused on a sense of well-spełnionego obligation for viewing pages from creeping thing destitution, with the result that Sławek is only at 67 place of the richest Poles. Only the fact that Czech wyrzucił then (there is enough in Machiavellian way – by sending a text message: “You work here spoko kapencjusz finito”) resulted in that came up in place of 67 But it was only his sole and exclusive only on merit. I even thanked his wife would not like to get a prize “Inzapbizu” page for years, for which they still had and for that entire time lobbował.

To give a chance to gain happiness and even greater fame, was sent Przekośniak, claiming to be “Wielbicielkę, SMS and the chief editors of newspapers and opinion-known politicians, men of culture, show-business, science, health, nutrition, care pot plants; teachers of dance and tango qualadora defense parawirtualnego, a philosopher and a friend from the shop with your precious paluszkami serowymi.

How do you expect, the reaction was spontaneous, euforyczna and clearly in favor. With one exception – policies associated with the head of its domestic service, parliamentary wheel, the number of mobile phone 0-609-3459812, known in the absence of a sense of humor, bad intentions of the author received a text message, sounding “best wishes spade.” The case went to the calendar committee and the committee on security.

It took ten months. In his new residence, at the top, (meant here to the ninth floor) Przekośniak przymierzał new przetykany titanium-kevlarową thread-like black suit samoukładający up. He had the evening to receive the prize of the “Przekobizu” page for one year (for “Inzapbiz” could not wait).

67. the list of the richest Poles liked to yourself in the mirror. Przećwiczył smile and step, check whether the card is in your pocket with the text of speeches and wygładził incomprehensible to the belly bulge. We welcome wlał to the glass remains open two weeks ago of French wine and see the glory in his impressive face, said:

- Health stranger by the throat bell.

At that time podjechały into a black limousine Przekośniakówkę Security Agency.

Wishes Shovel Best

On Christmas Eve Sławek Przekośniak received an SMS with these wishes: Wishing yo good ping super new”. He didn’t know who sent him that surprisingly enigmatic message. And he doesn’t know to this day. A pity, because thanks to that person he reached his current status and number 67 on the list of the wealthiest Poles.

Back then, during that beautiful, rusty white Christmas Eve night, Przekośniak, who was rudely kicked out from a social network for utopian fanatics of extreme phobias (www.ilovefobia.pl) just a few days earlier, got an idea.

It was a quite good idea too, and the next SMS (“All at cart by unintentionally only honest lamb”) convinced him it was the best idea of his life.

Sławek Przekośniak, together with a friend from ilovefobia.pl – Czesiek Ciąg, decided to set up an on-line service, through which one could send SMS greetings to mobile phones. And the most important feature of the service was that texts of the wishes were not going to be predetermined and there would be no set list of pre-selected options. Messages would be created by a special software program from random words provided by a customer. Such a system would allow for truly unique greetings, and after all, nobody said they had to be comprehensible.

Czesiek took care of the development of the software, which for now they named “John of the Disc”. Czesiek had suitable experience in the matter. While on the forum for (select as appropriate) phobics he designed an application, which created slogans for street protests. The application, even though it produced phrases completely illogical and nonsensical, became quite popular, and some of its most unique catchphrases you could have seen on TV – “Out With There Harm Out!” or “To Them Bag Away Now Now!”

Two future men of success got to work and the SMS greeting portal www.bestbestbest.pl went live just before Easter.

One of the site’s first users and enthusiasts was Ramona Kęstowicz from the popular girl band Fluffysteron. She didn’t feel like writing her own greetings, so she logged in to bestbestbest.pl and filled out a short form. In the field “Words You Want To Use” she put “egg” and “merry”, and in “Number of Additional Words” she wrote “3”. Two days later she began to receive phone calls from friends and acquaintances with praise for her incredibly creative wishes. And there was plenty to praise:
“Merry goat’s egg skull stink”
“Egg cattle merry wedged marvelous”
“Ammeter splashing merry Oligocene eggs”
“Incontinence merry before egg postmodernism”

Soon the service was hailed as “the most innovative internet achievement of the year” by the “Internet Sites Beginning With N” magazine. The exclusive triple click rate adjusted for median parallel traffic soon reached 34.98 and grew at an impressive pace. Czesiek created a special mode for Mother’s Day, which turned out to be a mega-hit – the weekly magazine “Let Pass” included the “Mother’s left sickly bingo” wishes in its “Quote of the Week” column. And that’s how the uncontrollable popularity of the service began. Mobile phone operators noticed a significant fall in earnings due to a drop in profits from SMS fees. However, the always far-sighted Sławek offered them a revenue sharing option in return for partial investment and access to new technologies.

Czesiek designed two additional modes: Name Day and Birthday, and then after a job well done, concentrated his time and effort on viewing sites specializing in kinky naked everything. The end result of which was ¬– Sławek got merely to number 67 on the list of the richest Poles. And only the fact that he fired Czesiek shortly after, in a rather machiavellian manner at that – by sending an SMS “You work here not easy kaput finito”, allowed him to reach that 67th position at all. But this was thanks to only his and solely his sole and only hard work and merit. He wouldn’t even publicly thank his wife if he got the “Inzapbiz” Award for the Internet Site of the Year, an award on which he was still counting on and lobbied for.

To give luck a chance and to gain an even greater fame, Przekośniak sent, posing as “Admirer”, SMSs to editors of major, highly influential papers, known politicians, people in culture, show-business, science, healthy living gurus, authorities on potted plants, teachers of the self-defense dance qualadora, as well as semi-virtual tango, an acquaintance who was also a philosopher, and a lady from a shop selling imported cheese sticks.

Just as he expected, the reaction was spontaneous, euphoric and unequivocally positive. With just one exception. A politician connected with the home service of his parliamentary section’s boss, with the mobile phone number 0-609-3459812, and known for his lack of sense of humor, did not take too well to a message from “Admirer” – “Wishes shovel best”. The inquiry was turned over to the Inquiry Board and the Board of Inquiries.

Ten months went by. In his new pad, upstairs (here it meant the 9th floor), Przekośniak was trying on a new, titanium-kevlar threaded, quasi-black, self-adjusting suit. That night he was scheduled to accept the Award for the Site of the Year in a competition sponsored by “Przekobiz” (he didn’t have the patience to wait for “Inzapbiz”).
Number 67 on the list of the wealthiest Poles liked what he saw in the mirror. He practiced his smile and stride, checked if the paper with his acceptance speech was in his pocket, and smoothed down the mysterious tissue bulge on his belly. Thus pleased, he refilled his glass with the rest of the two-week ago opened Suwałki wine and glancing with admiration at his own imposing image, said:
“Cheers from afar throat through a bell”.

Exactly at the same time, black limousines from the Special Security Agency arrived in front of his house.