Universal Translator

Hello to all, For those of you who don't know, I'm a freelance technical translator so I am directly concerned by this subject... Some of you may have used translators in your professional life, and some may have even used several. The thing with translators is that if you have 5 translators translating the same thing, you will have 5 fundamentally identical translations but with a small percentage of differences in each translation. But they all mean the same thing (of course, only if the translators were specialists, native speakers with a significant amount of experience...). Even in English if you give five technical writers the same information from which they must write a manual, you'll get 5 different manuals... SO, this being said, how the heck do you expect a computer, which cannot take into account so many of the factors that come into translating work, to translate something as well as a specialist technical translator???? If some of you have used the "famous" Google translation software, I am sure you've had a nice laugh. It's good to get the gist of a text, and even then I'm being nice, but if you want your text to be read by clients, forget it!!! Anyway, I am defending my know-how here, I know, but I felt obliged to!!! ;-) Cynthia

I agree. We currently use an on-line translator to understand our clients (and actually use it to translate our emails, sending them both English & French versions).

I've used it to understand some parts of patents (it took 5 different web translators and plenty of time for me, with German-English dictionary to get something vaguely readable!)

Once I'd decided the patent was going to be useful, I got it professionally translated!

It isn't fool proof though. I see a LOT of websites that they just run it through Babelfish or some equivalent and then post it on their website. Nothing can replace a good editor, even if you have a fluent speaker. Personally I rely on an editor to make sure my technical jargon is kept to a minimum.

Being a professional translator, I also belong to a translator community on the web at www.proz.com Here is a (very long) discussion on MT (machine translations) for those who wish to read what the professionals think about a computer doing their work... http://www.proz.com/topic/37742 Good reading

An invention like this would be of great use in a forum such as the United Nations; however, the possibility of a "real time" error in translated discussions of war and peace is a sobering thought.

Already done. http://www.xscapesprops.com/star%20trek%20props/Co mmunicator%20Pin%20TNG.jpg

Sorry, bad link - http://www.cocs.com/poser/comt.gif

Using machines to translate a language isn't a new concept yet the process was slow and output lagged. Here you can find https://translatehub.org/15-translation-rules/ that will help translate into several languages.