Japan is often hailed as the world headquarters of cute pop culture and the Internet memes they generate, but a new online trick brings the Japanese cute to anyone with a computer and access to Google Translate.
See also: Google Translate Beat Boxes When You Type This Gibberish
Recently popularized by a number of Japanese bloggers, this Google Translate surprise hinges on the unique way in which the word "dot" is spoken in Japanese: dotto.
What Google Translate experimenters found out is that if you type a series of periods in English, select the "Japanese to English" setting, and then click "Listen" you are treated to a surprisingly rhythmic and almost mesmerizing sound that could be mistaken for an actual tune.
With a little experimentation on our end, using our knowledge of Japanese writing and pronunciation, we managed to use the "dotto" quirk in Google Translate to help us construct a Google-generated Mashable song. You can give a listen here, or try your own hand at getting the Japanese voice of Google Translate to sing.
BONUS: Google Tricks and Easter Eggs
Enter "Google Gravity" in the search bar. Hit "I'm feeling lucky" (if you have Google Instant enabled, it's on the right hand side of the suggested searches). Then watch your world fall down.
Simply search for the word "askew." We dare you not to tilt your head.
Search for the Walker Texas Ranger star, hit I'm Feeling Lucky, and Google will school you in Norrisology.
Searching for ASCII art -- the kind built out of characters -- is about the nerdiest thing you can do. Google salutes you with a special logo.
Here's one for word nerds and philosophy majors. Search for "recursion" and Google asks "did you mean recursion?"
This one started life as an April Fool's joke, but is still around at google.com/mentalplex. Baffle your less Internet-savvy family and friends!
The Google doodle that launched a thousand lost hours of productivity will live forever at google.com/pacman.
Here's where Google easter eggs start to get a little more complex. Go to Google Reader, then use your cursor keys thus: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A. A ninja then pops onto your screen and into your search box. Thankfully, this still works in the new version of Google Reader.
Set your iGoogle homepage to the beach theme. Wait until 3:14am (or if you can't, just move your clock forward). What monster this way comes? Could we be on the shores of Loch Ness?
This one began life as an easter egg, and became so well-loved that Google incorporated it as a feature in Google Earth. Click on Tools > Enter Flight Simulator, and you're off and flying around the planet. Bon voyage!
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