Apart from Babelfish and WorldLingo, can anyone suggest a good and, most importantly, accurate website tranlator.
Recommend a good online translator.
- Thread starter AJS
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Google Translate is pretty good. They have their own translation engine which might give you different results than the SYSTRAN based sites.
+1 google translate is what i have been using with great success
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- #4
Thankyou for the replies.
Odd. I was going to say not Google Translate. Whenever I put in Spanish terms that I hear all the time, it returns the Spanish term to me as the translation. Here is an example:
Input: sierra
Translation: Spanish » English
sierra
Maybe everyone at Google understands the Spanish term and thinks it stands on its own, but if I already understood it, I wouldn't be asking for a translation! I have commented back to Google Translator several times about this, but it still happens. I just ran it to get the above example.
Tim
PS - In my opinion, the correct translation of the above would be mountain range.
Input: sierra
Translation: Spanish » English
sierra
Maybe everyone at Google understands the Spanish term and thinks it stands on its own, but if I already understood it, I wouldn't be asking for a translation! I have commented back to Google Translator several times about this, but it still happens. I just ran it to get the above example.
Tim
PS - In my opinion, the correct translation of the above would be mountain range.
I would like to hear the impression of our international friends as how they receive these letters that make use of these translators. I always fear that my letters will end up offending a family member or sounding like a Monty Python sketch.
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- #8
This has always been my main concern; written text often fails to convey the nuances present in direct conversation, and apart from sounding clumsy, I always worry that what's lost in the translation may end up offending the recipient.
Nuances, yes, that is what online translaters just cannot convey. And accuracy is something you'd better not expect, either.
I am a translator myself, and among translators, the fear of online translators making professionals jobless has been around ever since computer translations came up. But that fear is unfounded, computer generated translations nearly always make me laugh. The good news is that this is more often the case than insults which are rather rare.
I quite like Leo, too, but only as a reference. Leo is good in that it gives you many possible translations for single words to choose from.
For personal letters I think online translators are all right, but please: When the translation is supposed to be published or official in any way, contact a professional and at least have the online translation checked by one.
And another tip: make sure to get a translator who translates into his mother tongue only, only then can nuances be conveyed properly, unless of course the translator grew up bilingual.
I think when using computer translations the best idea is to mark the text as having been translated by a machine.
Greetings
oskar
I am a translator myself, and among translators, the fear of online translators making professionals jobless has been around ever since computer translations came up. But that fear is unfounded, computer generated translations nearly always make me laugh. The good news is that this is more often the case than insults which are rather rare.
I quite like Leo, too, but only as a reference. Leo is good in that it gives you many possible translations for single words to choose from.
For personal letters I think online translators are all right, but please: When the translation is supposed to be published or official in any way, contact a professional and at least have the online translation checked by one.
And another tip: make sure to get a translator who translates into his mother tongue only, only then can nuances be conveyed properly, unless of course the translator grew up bilingual.
I think when using computer translations the best idea is to mark the text as having been translated by a machine.
Greetings
oskar
I'll use google translator just to double check myself when going english -> french or for specific word. I wouldn't trust it for a whole document, especially if you didn't have a firm grasp on the language it's been translated into.
hmmm
could it be you're meaning to type "cierra" which is usually a command telling someone to close somethings. For example, "cierra la puerta" would mean "close the door."
+1 Language teachers have had the same fear, that software will make them obsolete. But to date language learning Web sites and programs only augment a teacher. Anyone who tells you they became fluent in a language by only using a computer is either 1) a rare savant whose case won't extend to others or 2) mistaken about what the word "fluent" means.
As far as online translators, they're good for words, maybe phrases, but at least for Chinese and Japanese, not sentences in general. For example, the English sentence "I don't feel very well today" is not accurately translated into Chinese using Google or a new alternative Nice Translator. They both supply 我不觉得今天非常好 which is "I don't consider today to be very well" which doesn't make any sense. And this is a sentence I literally chose at random to test them, my first thought.
No. I meant to type "sierra", as in Sierra Nevada, meaning the Nevada Mountains. This has happened with at least two other words, neither of which I currently remember. I can find one of them, though, it was from McCarthy's book, All the Pretty Horses. He used it so often I tried to look it up on Google Translate and, again, it responded with the Spanish word as the English translation of the Spanish word.
Tim
Well, now I can't find the book. Sorry. 
Tim
Tim
I'm not sure I'm following what you're saying, I typed the word "sierra" and I got back 8 diferent definitions
n.:1. saw
2. hacksaw
3. mountain range
4. sierra
5. range
6. mountain chain
7. chain
8. chine
Well, you have me stumped. If I type in "rojo", it translates it to "red". Looks like it is working. Then, if I type in "sierra", it returns "sierra". I don't know what else to say.
More examples: puerto gives port (good). tia gives tia (bad). plata gives silver (good). Some things work, others don't. It is baffling.
Also, for some reason, I cannot do a PrtScrn and paste it as a photo that I can post here. I have no idea why, it probably has something to do with all the defenses against malware.
Tim
More examples: puerto gives port (good). tia gives tia (bad). plata gives silver (good). Some things work, others don't. It is baffling.
Also, for some reason, I cannot do a PrtScrn and paste it as a photo that I can post here. I have no idea why, it probably has something to do with all the defenses against malware.
Tim
Ok, I have found out something. When I am on Google and go to Google Translate, it takes me to a page called "Translate Text or Webpage". That is where I am getting the inconsistent results. However, there are Tabs at the top of this page, one of which is "Dictionary". If I click that tab and enter the words where I got the "bad" results, it gives me satisfactory results like the list of possibilities you saw.
However, if the "Translate Text or Webpage" is the first place it takes you when you go to Google Translate from Google, then that page should also give "good" results.
I will stop ranting, now.
Tim
However, if the "Translate Text or Webpage" is the first place it takes you when you go to Google Translate from Google, then that page should also give "good" results.
I will stop ranting, now.
Tim
