blog: automatic translation

[nikos]

here's the comment area for today's blog post found at:
http://www.zabkat.com/blog/20Apr08.htm

[snemarch]

Ah, automatic translations.

I remember using babelfish back in school when I had Spanish classes, since I've never really been able to grok any foreign languages but English (and a range of programming languages ).

Wasn't perfect though, my teacher laughed a bit at a sentence which basically wound up as "she has lusty desires for her new refrigerator"... so be a bit careful if you use these translators.

[nikos]

btw narayan found the exact spirit/vodka "translation" that i was talking about in the article; so from english to russian and back to english:

"the flesh is weak, but the spirit is strong"
"the mutton is rare, but the vodka is strong"

artificial yes, intelligent no

[kunkel321]

I use these for work fairly often--translating from Eng>Span.
I always convert my paragraphs back to Eng, just to confirm that they are 'in the ballpark.'  I work with special education, doing eligibility evals, etc.  One time I started with a statement something like "...after several attempted interventions, Jose still struggles with his academics..."   When changed to Sp, then back it was something like "despite several restraints, Jose continues to fight with his teachers..."  I later shared the experience with the parent via a professional interpreter at a meeting---She thought it was pretty funny

Also, FWIW, I've found http://www.freetranslation.com/ to be the most accurate...   -steve

[pj]

Bablefish appears to be a little weak in the English -> Greek -> English department (with some humerous 360 translation results), and  Freetranslation doesn't handle Greek.  How does "hello" become "Geja'soy"?

I'm going to honeymoon in Crete in October and I was hoping to get some understanding of common phrases before then.  Maybe I'll go back and watch the apes in "2001: A Space Odessey" to work out a more reliable comunications protocol.
_________________
PJ in (sunny) FL

"The hardest thing to admit is what you don't know"