Learn a new language in 5 seconds

Impossible?

Well, yes but no.

In this brave new world, where anybody is re-defining the meaning of words, we have re-defined "learn" while retaining the concept of "acquire a new thought or skill".

Instead of interpreting "learn a new language" to mean the holy trinity of reading, writing, understanding at least some basic elements of a language, we simply tell you how to access this skill.

And, trust us, the result will beat at least a year of intensive, gruelling exercises.

Introducing Google Translate (online),  Babylon Translation (download), Free Translator.com (online, with links to other sites).

There are a million reasons for using these services, all of them described, re-described, and re-hashed in a million web pages.

We have another one for you, inspired by the genteel words of our German friend known to you as Old mustached German (OMG). He phrased it this way: "I did not wear a uniform and spend some of the best time of my life only to have any bureaucrat dimwit of the planet read all my emails."

Our hint "Use strong encryption" was met with "whatever!", so we looked into cheap and easy ways to make life just a miniscule amount more difficult for the friendly spooks.

One of the things they do is run text analysis software beyond the infamous keyword lists. Think of it as kind of the same software that allows to attribute a recently discovered play to Shakespeare of that helps to find yet another cheating German PhD.

While you are not Shakespeare and while the probability of you holding a PhD is low, the inveterate collectors have jobs to defend and will suck up your writing.

You can help them by sending the odd email in a foreign language with the help of Google and Friends above.

If you do not speak the language and the recipient does not either, they will have to "re-translate" it, and the result will contain errors large or small.

Instead, you can do the re-translation before you send the text. Fix the really egregious mistakes but leave the rest untouched. This will help to mix up your style a bit, for example, say you started your mail with "I received your last email", then you had it translated into, say, Greek, then you took the stuff that was all Greek to you and translated it into English. Your first sentence may now read "I obtained your last email".

What's good enough for the goose is good enough for the geeks.

Oh, and if somebody accuses you of tampering with your own writing style, just tell them you used the Microsoft Grammar and Spell-check with auto correct.

If that is not convincing enough, tell them you are performing an internet email art project inspired by Jackson Pollock, only instead of splattering paint vigorously and randomly onto a big canvas, you are doing the same with words.

Another unanswered question is: do the planetary spooks use these free online services if they run grab a document they don't understand and want to get an idea what's in it? How many Chinese, Russian, American tidbits of information find their way into these translation engines? 

Randomness rocks!