How an extra "to" can make a big difference

On Friday I had the following blog post:

3 sentences every American should know how to say in every language

In case I get arrested in a foreign country, in that post I had original English for:

• I am an American citizen.
• People know I am here.
• I would like a lawyer please.

With the exception of Portuguese that I got from Milton Cesar Rocha, I used Google Translate to get the foreign language text of my three English sentences. That same day when Bart Blankendaal asked if I had gotten any humorous responses from the Netherlands, I once again used Google Translate to convert the foreign language text back into English. Here is what I got:

Dutch converted back to English:

• I am an American citizen.
• People know that I'm here.
• I want a lawyer to please.

French converted back to English:

• I am a U.S. citizen.
• People know that I am here.
• I want a lawyer please.

Italian converted back to English:

• I am an American citizen.
• People know I'm here.
• I want a lawyer please.

German converted back to English:

• I am an American citizen.
• People know I'm here.
• I would like to ask a lawyer.

Portuguese converted back to English:

• I am a U.S. citizen.
• People know I'm here.
• Please, I would like a lawyer.

Spanish converted back to English:

• I am an American citizen.
• People know I'm here.
• I would like a lawyer, please.

Monty Python's Flying Circus had a very funny skit about a tourist who attempts to buy tobacco but his Hungarian-English dictionary has the words all wrong. He winds up saying things like "My hovercraft is full of eels." I would say that "I would like a lawyer please." is different enough from "I would like a lawyer to please." that I can declare that my hovercraft is indeed full of eels.

Humor is once again alive in the lab.