Following Argentina’s controversial come-from-behind World Cup victory against Egypt, a match the losing team said was “fixed,” one wit on social media summed up the mood.

“Not even the British Museum stole so much from Egypt as FIFA did,” said user Intrapiernoso in a tweet seen by over 6 million people. It was arguably the best zinger of a tournament that has had dozens of them.

Except the original was not in English. What they actually wrote was, ”Ni el Museo Britanico le robo tanto a Egipto, como la FIFA.” I don’t speak Spanish and while it doesn’t take a genius to work out what ”el Museo Britanico” means, the act of puzzling over the unfamiliar grammar robs the remark of its wit.

But now, thanks to the automated, LLM-generated translations and algorithmic boosts of social media, I can read it in my native language. It’s also been shared by users speaking Persian, Arabic and Korean, for whom el Museo Britanico might be harder to grasp.

The World Cup happens once every four years, and each time it’s a stark demonstration of how technology has changed. During the 2006 tournament, I got into podcasts; in 2022, I watched the games anywhere on my iPad, free of my TV.

This is the first time I get to see what people in other cultures are saying about football, in their own........

© The Japan Times