To celebrate the release of the spoken interface to Google Translate, I asked the machines to translate my last fb post to English, then back to Hungarian, then to English again, etc, etc.

the original Hungarian text: Többen kérték, hogy fordítsam le a “Slim Logic”-ot magyarra. Mivel elég sok USA-specifikus része van az írásnak, ez elég nehéz lenne.. De itt van a két szerintem leghasznosabb hűtőre mágnessel kitehető táblázat belőle magyarul.

(note the quotation signs around Slim Logic. This is major help for the dumbass machines).

Hungarian to English #1: Several people asked to turn off the "Slim Logic" was Hungarian. Since there are many US-specific part of the writing, it would be quite difficult .. But here I think the two most useful fridge magnet in the table arises from it in Hungarian.

English to Hungarian #1: Többen kérte, hogy kapcsolja ki a "Slim Logic" magyar volt. Mivel sok amerikai-specifikus része az írás, ez elég nehéz .. De itt azt hiszem, a két leghasznosabb hűtő mágnes a táblázatban ered, hogy a magyar.

Hungarian to English #2: Several people asked to turn off the "Slim Logic" was Hungarian. Since many American-specific part of the writing, it's pretty hard .. But here I think the two most useful fridge magnet in the table comes from the Hungarian.

English to Hungarian #2: Többen kérte, hogy kapcsolja ki a "Slim Logic" magyar volt. Mivel sok amerikai-specifikus része az írás, ez elég nehéz .. De itt azt hiszem, a két leghasznosabb hűtő mágnes a táblázatban származik a magyar.

Hungarian to English #3 is the same as #2, so we have convergence after two iterations. Somehow, I am not very impressed though...

Just for the record, here is how I would translate the original to English: Several people have asked me to translate “Slim Logic” to Hungarian. As the essay has many US-specific parts, this would be quite difficult... But here are the two, I think, most useful tables from it that can be stuck to a fridge with magnets.

(Note: the last sentence of the Hungarian original is a lot more densly expressed, using tricky features of the language.)

Ok, maybe Hungarian is not a major language, and certainly not one with an easy grammar, so this fail may be due to language choice. Sadly, it is not: You may try Hindi, or Mandarin, and the results will be similar. The translator, however, works quite well if you stick within the Indo-European language family (and avoid set expressions, like "evening shadow").