Translating Languages
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As an englishman working for a French-Canadian company the problem of translating documents comes up now and again. Usually I get by with Google translate and a dictionary but now after a long development I finally have a product with documentation in English that needs to be translated into French. As I wondered about this problem I received an unsolicited email from ECTACO offering automatic translation software!! Have Dell been developing mind reading software for their laptops? Seriously has anyone had any experience with kind of software? I have also seen similar sofware by SYSTRAN who claim to translate documents for governments and large corporations. Any info from an end user at all would be appreciated.
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect
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As an englishman working for a French-Canadian company the problem of translating documents comes up now and again. Usually I get by with Google translate and a dictionary but now after a long development I finally have a product with documentation in English that needs to be translated into French. As I wondered about this problem I received an unsolicited email from ECTACO offering automatic translation software!! Have Dell been developing mind reading software for their laptops? Seriously has anyone had any experience with kind of software? I have also seen similar sofware by SYSTRAN who claim to translate documents for governments and large corporations. Any info from an end user at all would be appreciated.
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect
I don't have any experience with the software packages you're talking about. But I'm fluent in 3 languages and understand a couple of others. I've never seen a package (software) that can really translate things properly. And each language have nuances specific to each region. My suggestion would be to hire someone to do the translation. In the end, it might be cheaper and more cost efficient than what you get from software translation that ends up needing changes.
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As an englishman working for a French-Canadian company the problem of translating documents comes up now and again. Usually I get by with Google translate and a dictionary but now after a long development I finally have a product with documentation in English that needs to be translated into French. As I wondered about this problem I received an unsolicited email from ECTACO offering automatic translation software!! Have Dell been developing mind reading software for their laptops? Seriously has anyone had any experience with kind of software? I have also seen similar sofware by SYSTRAN who claim to translate documents for governments and large corporations. Any info from an end user at all would be appreciated.
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect
Steve_pqr wrote:
Seriously has anyone had any experience with kind of software?
I spent several years developing this kind of software :) It is called "machine translation". The quality of machine translation is nowhere near human translation except in some very limited cases of "controlled language" and definitelly is not suitable for translationg the product documentation. If it was, the human translators would be out of their jobs very quickly :)
modified on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 2:43 PM
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As an englishman working for a French-Canadian company the problem of translating documents comes up now and again. Usually I get by with Google translate and a dictionary but now after a long development I finally have a product with documentation in English that needs to be translated into French. As I wondered about this problem I received an unsolicited email from ECTACO offering automatic translation software!! Have Dell been developing mind reading software for their laptops? Seriously has anyone had any experience with kind of software? I have also seen similar sofware by SYSTRAN who claim to translate documents for governments and large corporations. Any info from an end user at all would be appreciated.
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect
Hearing CrapSoft at, in possesion magnificent of parallel movement parcel software. Full text detailed converter of language verbal, suspends 15 ordinary very usual language. Having very big nascent seeing complex at: http://www.craposoft.com/
I'm largely language agnostic
After a while they all bug me :doh:
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As an englishman working for a French-Canadian company the problem of translating documents comes up now and again. Usually I get by with Google translate and a dictionary but now after a long development I finally have a product with documentation in English that needs to be translated into French. As I wondered about this problem I received an unsolicited email from ECTACO offering automatic translation software!! Have Dell been developing mind reading software for their laptops? Seriously has anyone had any experience with kind of software? I have also seen similar sofware by SYSTRAN who claim to translate documents for governments and large corporations. Any info from an end user at all would be appreciated.
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect
I'll add to what Bert said about using human translation, make sure your translator is a native speaker in the destination language, just being reasonably fluent isn't enough to avoid occasional weird errors and idiomatic weirdness that will immediately jump out at native readers.
You know, every time I tried to win a bar-bet about being able to count to 1000 using my fingers I always get punched out when I reach 4.... -- El Corazon
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As an englishman working for a French-Canadian company the problem of translating documents comes up now and again. Usually I get by with Google translate and a dictionary but now after a long development I finally have a product with documentation in English that needs to be translated into French. As I wondered about this problem I received an unsolicited email from ECTACO offering automatic translation software!! Have Dell been developing mind reading software for their laptops? Seriously has anyone had any experience with kind of software? I have also seen similar sofware by SYSTRAN who claim to translate documents for governments and large corporations. Any info from an end user at all would be appreciated.
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect
Get a human translator period. I use to work for a large company. They outsourced English-Chinese translation to a cheap firm. Few years back we had a Chinese lady (very good developer) joined our group. When she saw the translation, she could not hold off her laughter. Some of the sentences did not make any sense and some words were slangs. Make sure to get a good human translate. Try this for a size. Take an English phrase pass it through any online translator then back to English and what you get is garbage. :wtf:
/* I can C */ // or !C Yusuf
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As an englishman working for a French-Canadian company the problem of translating documents comes up now and again. Usually I get by with Google translate and a dictionary but now after a long development I finally have a product with documentation in English that needs to be translated into French. As I wondered about this problem I received an unsolicited email from ECTACO offering automatic translation software!! Have Dell been developing mind reading software for their laptops? Seriously has anyone had any experience with kind of software? I have also seen similar sofware by SYSTRAN who claim to translate documents for governments and large corporations. Any info from an end user at all would be appreciated.
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect
I'm french if you're interrested. as for google translator, just don't trust it !
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As an englishman working for a French-Canadian company the problem of translating documents comes up now and again. Usually I get by with Google translate and a dictionary but now after a long development I finally have a product with documentation in English that needs to be translated into French. As I wondered about this problem I received an unsolicited email from ECTACO offering automatic translation software!! Have Dell been developing mind reading software for their laptops? Seriously has anyone had any experience with kind of software? I have also seen similar sofware by SYSTRAN who claim to translate documents for governments and large corporations. Any info from an end user at all would be appreciated.
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect
Have you ever read documentation where the words are English but the way in which they are put together has no discernible meaning? That's "automatic translation software" at work. Get a real translator, preferably a native speaker of the language you're translating to.
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Have you ever read documentation where the words are English but the way in which they are put together has no discernible meaning? That's "automatic translation software" at work. Get a real translator, preferably a native speaker of the language you're translating to.
Exactly how is this identifable from the Engrish that results from a non native speaker who is far from fluent doing the translation?
You know, every time I tried to win a bar-bet about being able to count to 1000 using my fingers I always get punched out when I reach 4.... -- El Corazon
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Exactly how is this identifable from the Engrish that results from a non native speaker who is far from fluent doing the translation?
You know, every time I tried to win a bar-bet about being able to count to 1000 using my fingers I always get punched out when I reach 4.... -- El Corazon
dan neely wrote:
Exactly how is this identifable from the Engrish that results from a non native speaker who is far from fluent doing the translation?
With a great deal of time and effort you might be able to discern some sort of meaning from the computer translation.
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As an englishman working for a French-Canadian company the problem of translating documents comes up now and again. Usually I get by with Google translate and a dictionary but now after a long development I finally have a product with documentation in English that needs to be translated into French. As I wondered about this problem I received an unsolicited email from ECTACO offering automatic translation software!! Have Dell been developing mind reading software for their laptops? Seriously has anyone had any experience with kind of software? I have also seen similar sofware by SYSTRAN who claim to translate documents for governments and large corporations. Any info from an end user at all would be appreciated.
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect
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As an englishman working for a French-Canadian company the problem of translating documents comes up now and again. Usually I get by with Google translate and a dictionary but now after a long development I finally have a product with documentation in English that needs to be translated into French. As I wondered about this problem I received an unsolicited email from ECTACO offering automatic translation software!! Have Dell been developing mind reading software for their laptops? Seriously has anyone had any experience with kind of software? I have also seen similar sofware by SYSTRAN who claim to translate documents for governments and large corporations. Any info from an end user at all would be appreciated.
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect
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Here is Google Translate text at work English:
Testing Google Translate Texttraslate English -> FrenchTester Google Traduction de textetraslate French -> EnglishTester Google Text TranslationHmmmm :^)/* I can C */ // or !C Yusuf
But to be fair it translated
Hitler hat nur einen HodenWithout any issues ...
I'm largely language agnostic
After a while they all bug me :doh:
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But to be fair it translated
Hitler hat nur einen HodenWithout any issues ...
I'm largely language agnostic
After a while they all bug me :doh:
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As an englishman working for a French-Canadian company the problem of translating documents comes up now and again. Usually I get by with Google translate and a dictionary but now after a long development I finally have a product with documentation in English that needs to be translated into French. As I wondered about this problem I received an unsolicited email from ECTACO offering automatic translation software!! Have Dell been developing mind reading software for their laptops? Seriously has anyone had any experience with kind of software? I have also seen similar sofware by SYSTRAN who claim to translate documents for governments and large corporations. Any info from an end user at all would be appreciated.
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect
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MidwestLimey wrote:
But to be fair it translated Hitler hat nur einen Hoden Without any issues ...
did you try to translate it back to the origin?
/* I can C */ // or !C Yusuf
Yep German->English->German without entropy. Practicle, obviously :D
I'm largely language agnostic
After a while they all bug me :doh:
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I'll add to what Bert said about using human translation, make sure your translator is a native speaker in the destination language, just being reasonably fluent isn't enough to avoid occasional weird errors and idiomatic weirdness that will immediately jump out at native readers.
You know, every time I tried to win a bar-bet about being able to count to 1000 using my fingers I always get punched out when I reach 4.... -- El Corazon
Especially if the translation is technical; we (programmers) have our own slangs that sometimes must be translated into especial words. I remember having this software installed on my computer that used to display this message: "la aplicación no está conectada a la telaraña" ("the application is not connected to the web") where they translated "web" literaly to "telaraña": spider web.
Stupidity is an International Association - Enrique Jardiel Poncela
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Surely working for a French-Canadian company, you have in-company resources for this? No one at the company speaks québécois?
Thanks everyone for replying - I understand that the online translators are not very good, I've done the english-french-english thing to see what pops out. I just wondered if the commercial packages might be a little better but I guess not. Just goes to show though with all the software brains out there its still not possible to write anything that comes close to beating a human translator! We are a small company so our in-house resources are limited - looks like it will have to be an external translator, I guess there are people out there who specialise in technical translations?
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect
-
As an englishman working for a French-Canadian company the problem of translating documents comes up now and again. Usually I get by with Google translate and a dictionary but now after a long development I finally have a product with documentation in English that needs to be translated into French. As I wondered about this problem I received an unsolicited email from ECTACO offering automatic translation software!! Have Dell been developing mind reading software for their laptops? Seriously has anyone had any experience with kind of software? I have also seen similar sofware by SYSTRAN who claim to translate documents for governments and large corporations. Any info from an end user at all would be appreciated.
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect
If it is English/French/German, you really need to hire a Belgian :-) In my previous job, which was in systems engineering for a major US networking gear manufacturer, one of our lead engineers was a Belgian. He would be on all our conference calls with carriers like T-Mobile, BT, KPN (Dutch is a bonus). I also worked with another Belgian on a project involving KPN, ditto - zero communication issues. Do the schools teach these languages ? It is somewhat like India, where there are many who have command over multiple languages (with different scripts). The difference is there is no technical activity happening in any of those languages. Another difference is many Indians have command of two languages, very rarely three or more.
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Hearing CrapSoft at, in possesion magnificent of parallel movement parcel software. Full text detailed converter of language verbal, suspends 15 ordinary very usual language. Having very big nascent seeing complex at: http://www.craposoft.com/
I'm largely language agnostic
After a while they all bug me :doh:
And what language was that written in? :P
“Time and space can be a bitch.” –Gushie, Quantum Leap {o,o}.oO( Looking for a great RSS reader? Try FeedBeast! ) |)””’) Built with home-grown CodeProject components! -”-”-