Why was Justin Trudeau blathering about a “portfolio of us old guys,” “Nazi innings,” “railroad stations in Motorola” or a “recourse to ice packs” at the White House this week?

Actually, he wasn’t.

But that’s what the ABC TV translation and close-captioning service had the Prime Minister saying as it converted his speech on the White House lawn from French into English.

An ABC TV spokesperson blamed the jibberish on a wonky computer program.

"The closed captioning in this video was automatically generated by speech recognition software," the spokesperson said. "The software misinterpreted French for English."

For more than a minute, captions at the bottom of the screen served up some gems of gibberish, some from the French translation.

At first, the close-captioning got it wrong; U.S. President Barack Obama appeared to refer to Trudeau as “Mr. Notable Whitehouse.”

Then, when Trudeau spoke in French, there was some jabbering about a “portfolio of us old guys.”

After that, things careered horribly out of control.

There was: “to be. He estimates. Quote. From fishing. Boat as it.”

Another head-scratcher was : “have also decided to make a board that both more open and we’ll say. Eight by. Agreeing. 032. Clearing”

Perhaps you can make sense of: “going to keep on doing these and the union the years and that dictated sitcom. and we hope in the”

If so, then you might also be able to help explain the reference to the “soda fortune in Quebec.”

After 71 seconds, things were pulled back under control, just after Trudeau was translated as saying: “President Obama, I’d love the log trucks.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Read more about: