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How Not to Use Google Translate
This is What’s Trending Today.
Late-night television host Jimmy Fallon loves to sing.
He has a number of funny skits on his show related to singing.
For example, he often asks famous singers to do impressions of other singers.
He uses a “Wheel of Musical Impressions." The guests are given a song, and a singing style.
Once, Alicia Keys was asked to sing “The Alphabet Song” in the style of Adele.
Another time, Celine Dion did the classic song “Frere Jacques” as if she were Cher.
On a recent show, Fallon and actress Anne Hathaway warned against using translation services and websites like Google Translate for song lyrics.
Fallon said that he translated the words to some popular songs from English into Hungarian and back into English using Google Translate. He and Hathaway had some fun singing the translated lyrics.
The songs Fallon chose to translate were “Can’t Feel My Face” by The Weeknd, “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor and “Just Give Me a Reason” by Pink and Nate Ruess.
“Can’t Feel My Face” became “My Front is Not Felt.” “I Will Survive” became “I Will Be Punctual,” and “Just Give Me a Reason” turned into “Only Tell Me Grounds.”
Fallon was not the first person to do this kind of skit. People on social media reminded Fallon fans that a singer named Malinda Kathleen Reese has been making similar YouTube videos for a long time. Her videos are called “Google Translate Sings.”
In one of her videos, she translated Adele's song "Hello." The song's line, "Hello from the other side," became "Greetings from overseas."
And that’s What’s Trending Today.
Dan Friedell wrote this story for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.
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Words in This Story
host – n. a person (especially a man) who is entertaining guests socially or as a job
skit – n. a short, funny story or performance
translate – v. to change words from one language into another language
lyric – n. the words of a song
impression – n. an imitation of a famous person that is done for entertainment