Question: This is my code and I simply want it to read the input and if it is not empty just return what was inputted. 

```
print "Welcome to translator!"
print "Enter in an english word"
original=raw_input("Enter a word")

if len(original) != 0:
     return original

```

Answer: 
You can only `return` from within a function So that would produce a `SyntaxError`.

A proper way to achieve what you want is by:

```
print "Welcome to translator!"
print "Enter in an english word"
original = raw_input("Enter a word")

if original: # Checks if original is not empty
     print original

```

If you want to return from a function:

```
print "Welcome to translator!"
print "Enter in an english word"
original=raw_input("Enter a word")

def not_empty(string):
     if string:
        return string

print not_empty(original)

```
From the Python Official Website:

> 
> `return` may only occur syntactically nested in a function definition,
>  not within a nested class definition.
> 
> 
> If an expression list is present, it is evaluated, else None is
>  substituted.
> 
> 
> `return` leaves the current function call with the expression list (or
>  None) as return value.
> 
> 
> When `return` passes control out of a try statement with a finally
>  clause, that finally clause is executed before really leaving the
>  function.
> 
> 
> In a generator function, the `return` statement is not allowed to
>  include an expression\_list. In that context, a bare return indicates
>  that the generator is done and will cause StopIteration to be raised.
> 
> 
>