Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Translation Cycle Game

My sheep are so woeful!
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There are many popular word games, such as Scrabble, crosswords, Pictionary, etc. These games are very entertaining, and do not require the use of a computer.

The Translation Cycle Game differs in two respects.

It requires the use of any designated Internet translation site, such as Babelfish. The player selects a language, and an English sentence of 10 or fewer words.

They then use the translator to translate their sentence back and forth to and from the chosen language repeatedly, until the results (in English) start to repeat themselves. For example, starting with Japanese as the language and "He died with a carrot up his nose." as the sentence, we get:

He died with a carrot up his nose
He died the carrot on that nose
He died that nose of the carrot
He died that nose carrot
He died the carrot of that nose
He died that nose of the carrot
He died that nose carrot

This settles down to a cycle of three, beginning with the third iteration, and hence has a score of 3+3 = 6

The objective of the game is to find the language/sentence combination which gives the greatest score by this method.

This game is quite tedious.

Thanks to [Grogster] for unspiring this idea.

MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 06 2010

Unspired by: Translated-Retransl...0Movie_20Soundtrack
[MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 06 2010]

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       If the translator is consistent (ie, the same input always leads to the same output), then there can't be a reversal, other than a 2-cycle. For example, you could get the pattern:   

       A
B
C
B
C
B
etc
  

       but you couldn't have:   

       A
B
C
D
C
B
A
  

       because that would mean that B can give C, and also that B can give A (likewise C can give both D and B).   

       I think you can only have a series of different phrases, eventually settling down into a constant result (a "1- cycle") or into a cycle of several phrases.   

       I guess there's no reason why you couldn't have a phrase that grew continuously.
MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 06 2010
  

       I suspect but cannot prove that the Google translator works by translating a phrase into a root language then back out to the desired language. A second translation using the output first goes back to the root language and so is not as screwed up as one might expect / hope.
bungston, Aug 06 2010
  

       //is not as screwed up as one might expect//   

       So, what happens with the nasal carrot?
MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 06 2010
  

       That is precisely why Frosty the Snowman was in the produce department --- he was picking his nose.
Grogster, Aug 06 2010
  
      
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