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33 Comments
- Niddik, on 10/23/2007, -0/+21"Disclaimer: None of the following language translation services can substitute for a real live human translator."
This is not emphasized enough. - inactive, on 10/23/2007, -2/+9Ran your statement through Google translator - English to Spanish, then Spanish to English. I think it speaks for itself.
"Disclaimer: None of the following translation services can replace a real live human translator."
This is not important. - Patogrande, on 10/23/2007, -0/+5Romantic languages are too similar.
To China and back:
"Exemption clause: none of the following language translation services, can replace a real live human translation."
This is not emphasized enough. - vofuse, on 10/24/2007, -0/+4I was hoping my new next door neighbor was going to be Jessica Alba and a lifetime supply of Guinness Draught.
- br0ck, on 10/23/2007, -0/+3"is a pretty old fashionned word" I don't see why you're belaboring the point since it seems pretty obvious that automated translators are going to do a better job with the old fashioned words that with modern slang, so this simple phrase failing indicates major problems with the translator.
- sitetrans, on 10/24/2007, -4/+7Google provides a good, free service: http://translate.google.com/translate_t
- inactive, on 10/23/2007, -0/+2Ça prend bien un français pour ne pas savoir parler Français. Tantôt est la traduction directe de later.
This edzilla guy is an idiot. Tantôt really is used all the time. I also suspect that he is not really French. Plus tard is the exact equivalent of tantôt. It's like saying more later instead of just later.
Plus his argument defeats it's own purpose. It's the more formal expression of later. It should be translated correctly and not translated by a word that has absolutely nothing to do with the original meaning. - moffie, on 10/23/2007, -0/+2For Eng.-De. and De.-Eng. translations, www.dict.cc is probably the best website available. It does not offer word-for-word literal translations for text blocks. However, the site does include an extensive (growing every day with more (technical and layman as well as slang and idiom) terms, words and phrases) dictionary, and a translation forum, for those of us who have made a valiant effort, but still need help translating that paragraph/sentence/word. The forum is constantly crowded by skilful translators of both languages, and occasionally (often) someone can also offer their expertise with another (Eng.-, -Nl, Fr, Ru, etc.)
- Mononuclear, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1Colloquial sayings are usually going to be translated incorrectly because the literal meaning has nothing to do with the intended meaning in the saying. Every language has phrases that when translated literally make no sense..
- rawsteak, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1this doesn't explain anything, only lists different online translators.... i've been had!
- Mononuclear, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1Are you trying to say English is a romantic language? It's not.. If you are trying to say it's harder to translate from one language to a romantic language and back that is wrong. It doesn't matter how close other languages are, it is translating to only one. It isn't comparing it to Portuguese, French, Italian, etc.
- blackturtleus, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1I use BabelFish a lot to translate Russian to English. It's not terribly accurate! As a way to supplement my Russian lessons I regularly read through Russian news articles and try to decipher as much as I can. To check my understanding I paste a paragraph at a time into BabelFish. Most of the time the translation is close enough to help, but there have been occasions where the results were very inaccurate. Luckily, I know a Russian speaker who I can bother to check odd translations. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, BUT there have been some amazingly poor translations generated by BabelFish.
- reversekilled, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1More surprise will be found when you knock it!
- nairanvac, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1That still expresses the same concept, albeit with slightly different words.
- weeeezzll, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1Is that with the original meaning, or modern slang usage?
- raada, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1It doesnt even have Swedish. I like Babelfish much better. More languages and better.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/ - staticneuron, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1Notice the "Suggest a better translation" link? Maybe google has the possiblity of becoming pretty good if people helped instead of criticized.
- Tetraca, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1It's still Indo-European.
- ewang, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1OK, so are there any good online services for AUDIO files in other languages? So far the only thing I've found is services that charge beaucoup dollars for even a half hour file. Perhaps a "Dragon Naturally" for other languages that could then feed a text translator?
- tedc, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1Well, I asked google to translate "I saw a girl in the park with a telescope" into Japanese. Linguists like to use that one to test automated translators, since there are several ways you might interpret the meaning. One early attempt resulted in the software assuming the present tense for "saw". In other words, there was this guy in the park trying to cut a girl in half using a telescope.
Anyway, this time, google shot back with some broken Japanese which reads something like: "The girl I saw will do a telescope at the park." Kinky... - DiTherBox, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1Sorry, but web translating services are, at most, funny.
- lenlol, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1another good english-german one is http://dict.leo.org
- edzilla, on 10/23/2007, -1/+1You've got to love Quebec swear words. Now, those are really fun!
- edzilla, on 10/23/2007, -1/+1Actually, google translates "Je suis en retard pour mon rendez-vous"... as "I am late for my appointment".
You loose. Big, big time. - thirdwill, on 04/12/2008, -0/+0I found a great translation company providing two way message translation, over the phone interpretation, document translation and tons more. Great price too. They are now offering a prepaid language card, which just like a credit card etc, you buy your minutes and use them as you need them. Very simple and easy to use! Over 100+ languages supported.
Dialog-one http://www.dialog-one.com - edzilla, on 10/23/2007, -1/+1Yes, well I'm pretty sure everyone on digg knows that automated translation cannot be completely trusted, and cannot replace a real live translator(like the guy said on his article).
And by the way, "tantôt" is a pretty old fashionned word in french(I'm not sure I've heard it outside a book in the last few years), I'm not surprised google doesn't really know what to make of it. - dphoenix1, on 10/23/2007, -0/+0heh, if you want a real laugh, check out http://tashian.com/multibabel/
it translates your text from english through five different languages back to english, using the freely available online translators.
if I remember correctly, once I ran "eat ***** and die" through it, it came back "eats the platoon to collect the thing, the mold!" - inactive, on 10/23/2007, -1/+1what is the point of mentioning, it was already mentioned in TFA
- Sil369, on 10/23/2007, -2/+2I was hoping the title of this page was going to be sarcastic and actually link to a site that mocks online translators. Boo.
- edzilla, on 10/23/2007, -2/+1Yeah, right. You obviously can speak fluent french. You know, what your 60 year old french teacher taught you in high school is not exactly always up to date.
Oh, and by the way, I am french. - edzilla, on 10/23/2007, -2/+1Ok, the guy is not french, he's from Quebec. I have nothing against Quebec, but the french they speak is not the french spoken in France.
They do use the word "tantot", but "every single French speaking person in the world." doesn't, far from it.
Again, I've got nothing against them, but they tend to use a lot of very, very old fashionned words. - edzilla, on 10/23/2007, -2/+1Or was, fifty years ago. Nowadays, we tend to use "plus tard".
And, once again, apparently, I'm the only native french speaker of the two of us. - padfignton, on 10/23/2007, -1/+0I thought I would see something a bit deeper
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