There are a number of free computerized 'translation' services on the web
now. The quality of the translation is generally very poor-- computers aren't
really good at reading human languages, and word-by-word translation has
serious drawbacks. However, if you have a document in a language you can't
read, trying a translation service could be a good first step to finding
out what it means. If you are thinking of using a translation service for
something you wrote yourself, first run it through the translator into the
target language and then through the translator again back into the original
language and look it over, as well as having someone else check it, before
using the translation: very bad errors sometimes creep in, especially
where contractions, slang and colloquialisms are concerned. (An interesting
article on the history and difficulties of creating good machine translation
systems is The Soldiers
are in the Coffee – An Introduction to Machine Translation: http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue2/mt/)
Online computerized translation services are best used a) when needing to find out the basic gist of something, such as a letter or a web page, or b) to find out whether it's worth your while to attempt to get something professionally translated.
Many of the free translation services also offer more fully-featured PC based translation packages for a fee. Because they are free services, their availability is not reliable-- if you can't get into one, try another.
Babelfish: http://babelfish.altavista.com/
This is the most popular translator service. Does word-by-word translations.
You can either give the URL (web page address) of a page you want translated,
or type or paste in the text you want translated. Nice clean interface, easy
to use; but not recommended by many users. Translates from English to, and
into English from, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, and Italian; also
French to and from German, and from Russian to English.(Uses Systran translation
software.)
Dictionary.com:
http://www.dictionary.com/translate/
Better than other translators on colloquialisms and narrative; not so good
with descriptive text. Translates either entered text or web pages (type
in URL). Nice interface, but tends to time out a lot. English to and from
Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese; as well as French to German
and vice versa. (Uses Systran translation software.)
FreeTranslation.com: http://www.freetranslation.com/
Translates both entered text and whole web pages (scroll down to see web
page translation function). Includes pulldowns to insert special characters
in material to be translated. Attempts to do translations based on phrases
rather than single words. Faster than Babelfish, though probably about as
accurate. Results page doesn't include a box to enter more material to translate--
but does give both source and translation in their entirety so you can print
out the page. English to Spanish, German, French, Italian, Norwegian and
Portuguese; Spanish, German, French to English. (Uses Transparent Language's
Enterprise Translation Server)
InterTran: http://tranexp.com:2000/InterTran
Translates both web pages & entered text. A wide selection of languages,
translations one to the other: Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Croatian,
Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, European Spanish, Filipino (Tagalog), Finnish,
French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Latin American
Spanish, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian,
Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Welsh. Translations will have a bunch of down-arrow
symbols in them, which you can click on to see alternative translations. If
InterTran cannot translate a word, it will display it in brackets [ ]. Translations
of specialized subject matter, especially in some of the less popular languages,
are not very good, but enough to get the gist if you are familiar with the
subject. Tends to time out on complicated translations.(Uses InterTran/WordTranslator
software). Very popular with knowledgeable second language users.
PROMT-Reverso Online:
http://www.paralink.com/translation/
Scrolling text boxes for text and translation mean you can't print
out the translation, though you can edit in place, and send email from that
screen. Special encoding and keyboard features. Click 'URL-mode' to translate
web pages.Translates between English, French, Russian, and Spanish.
Gist-in-Time http://translate.copernic.com:8090/
Web pages (enter URL) only-- no place to type in text for translation. From
English to and from Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese,
and Spanish. (Other language interfaces.) (Claims to use both Alis and Systran
software)
L&H Traductions:
http://translate.lhsl.com/officeupdate/france/
Interface in French. Translates entered text. Includes speciality dictionaries
which may help. English to French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish;
French to English, German and Italian; German into French and English; Italian
into English, French and Spanish; Portuguese into English; Spanish into English
and Italian