Kelly Jensen

Editor

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She's the editor/author of (DON'T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen.

Quizzes

QUIZ: Can You Decode These Book Titles Scrambled by Google Translate?

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Susie Dumond

Senior Contributor

Susie (she/her) is a queer writer originally from Little Rock, now living in Washington, DC. She is the author of QUEERLY BELOVED and the forthcoming LOOKING FOR A SIGN from Dial Press/Random House. You can find her on Instagram @susiedoom.

How well do you know books? Pretty well? Okay then, how well do you know books when their titles have gone through 20 different languages on Google Translate before being translated back to English? Take this quiz with book titles scrambled by Google Translate to find out!

I’m personally tickled by text that’s been Google Translate scrambled. It’s a testament to how complex and nuanced language is, how valuable real human translators are, and sometimes how beauty can be found in the miscommunication.

For this quiz, I used a Google extension called Bad Translator that automatically ran the book titles I chose through 20 random languages before translating them back into English. The results varied in how closely they stuck to the original titles. Some made me laugh. Some of them sound like they could really be bestsellers.

Here’s an example of what happens when I run the first line of Pride and Prejudice through the Google Translate scrambler. The original line is: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Bad Translator tells me: “Everyone knows that a man is happy without a woman.”

Wow. That’s kind of the opposite of what Jane Austen was trying to say. Anyway, let’s get to the quizzing!

Google Translate Scrambled Book Title Answers

WARNING: Spoilers lie ahead! Stop scrolling if you don’t want to see the correct answers to the quiz.

.

.

.

.

.

Small Pieces Everywhere = Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

An Unexpected Break = The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Birds of Prey Know Why They Sing = I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Wild Blueberries at Outpost Cafe = Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

Lord They Are Sick = The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

My Grandmother is Very Patient = My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Frederik Backman

A Great Evening Treat for Dogs = The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

We Are Always Available by Phone = We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Everything is Beyond Me = Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

One Day I Said Goodbye = Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Let’s Talk About Rocks = Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

The Food is Very Smelly = Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal

A Fun Combination = The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

He Died Beautiful = You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

Love When it Hurts = Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

That’s How War Works = This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone