Translations of Moby Dick

So I decided to translate the first sentence of Moby Dick into another language, and then translate it back to English. In my original blog post, I originally decided to try three different languages, but after thinking about it for a while, I decided to stick with one language.

Ultimately, I wanted to translate the first sentence into a language that was much different from the English language.  As you know, the English language itself can be at times a difficult langague.  Drawing words from other languages the English langue has a wide variety of words that are used.  I have heard from individuals speaking other languages that because of this there are some words that are used in the English language that just can not be translated into other languages.

So the language that I wanted to translate Moby Dick to is: Hebrew.

So here is some background information on Hebrew provided by Wikipedia.

• Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages in Israel
• Modern Hebrew is written from right to left using the Hebrew alphabet
•  The vocabulary used within the Hebrew language has been altered from its original form due to its reintroduction to various cultures of organic life throughout time.

So this is the first sentence of Moby Dick:

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having
little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on
shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of
the world.

So when I translated the first sentence of Moby Dick using google translation this is what I got:

קוראים לי ישמעאל. לפני כמה שנים - לא משנה כמה זמן בדיוק - שיש
מעט או ללא כסף בארנק שלי, ושום דבר לא מעניין אותי במיוחד על
חוף, חשבתי שאפליג על קצת ותראה את החלק המימי של
העולם.

After translating it back to English this is the result:

Call me Ishmael. A few years ago - no matter how long - that
Little or no money in my purse, and nothing particularly interesting to me
Beach, I thought I sail a little and see the watery part of the
World.
  
As a result, though the sentence structure of the sentence was there, the main idea of the sentences could change because  the word shore apparently did not translate back into English, it was instead, replaced with beach.  This little word change for me could even change the way you interpret the text, making the reader wonder if Ishmael is in fact sailing across the world looking for a beach or if it was the beach he had in mind the whole time, or maybe he just wanted to become a beach bum.  Putting all of these thoughts aside, this little exercise made me realize how different languages can be both a barrier and insightful at the same time.