Automatically Translate Language Tool

[Jack]

Automatically Translate Language Tool

Did you know that google will translate your pages in just about any language for you at a click of the mouse?

Check this out: http://www.google.com/language_tools

See where it says, “Translate a web page:” and simply place the URL to the page you would like translated.

English to Spanish and so on…

Pretty cool huh!

[jscheuer1]

Is that a free service?

Even if it is, I bet that there is a syntax involved.

[djr33]

Yeah. It's not complex. I don't really understand... are you just saying "look, it's cool"?

[Twey]

There are loads of these tools available, and have been for ages. Machine translation is of notoriously poor standard, though.

[Jack]

Yeah. It's not complex. I don't really understand... are you just saying "look, it's cool"?

Yea I just thought it was cool.
This is what dynamicdrive.com looks like in French on your screen.

----> http://translate.google.com/translat...language_tools

Note that you can also brake out of frame.

[Twey]

As suspected, that's pretty poor.

[djr33]

If you want to see how bad the translations are, just translate anything from English to a language of your choice then back to English.

[mburt]

Ditto. Find a german or french or something site and translate to English. The subject usually gets confused by computer programs between languages.

[jscheuer1]

I usually find that I can understand these 'translations' to the English but, I have a year of Latin, some German and French and my sister is fluent in Spanish. It really is the syntax of other languages that makes things so confusing. I think English is the only language where a sentence (more often than not) begins with a subject, moves on with a verb and winds up with an object. In almost all other languages, it seems this order is traditionally a bit different.

In English:

I love you.

In others:

Love you I.

or:

You I love.

,etc. Some syntaxes can even make the meaning obscure like:

I you love.

probably means 'I love you' (in some language's syntactical construction), even though it doesn't in English.

[Twey]

I think English is the only language where a sentence (more often than not) begins with a subject, moves on with a verb and winds up with an object.

Chinese also has the subject-verb-object pattern, and a lot more regularly than English, which, as you observed, doesn't always adhere to it. Several other Romance languages (French, Spanish) do it roughly the same amount as English, while German does it much less.

I you love.

probably means 'I love you' (in some language's syntactical construction), even though it doesn't in English.

Japanese: subject-object-verb (although this is just a convention: the language is actually more flexible).