custom rosetta stone
suppose you were given a lengthy text in an unknown language, written in an unknown script. you have no way of knowing anything about the language or the script from just this text. however, you are given an offer: provide at most 10 sentences, containing at most 10 words each, written in your dialect of english with proper grammar, and those sentences will be perfectly translated into the foreign language, in the foreign script, acting as a rosetta stone between the foreign language and english. what sentences, or what kinds of sentences would you like translated?
i don't have an answer for this, this is just a thought experiment/discussion. i'm curious what people's instincts are. don't feel the need to actually provide 10 sentences, i'm mainly looking for general thoughts