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Translating a Book

11/28/2009 2:39 AM

I would like to know if there is any way whereby the pages of a book, written and published in French, can be scanned on a conventional scanner, and the scanned text translated into English, using a conventional PC. The text I wish to translate has technical content.

If it can be done, please help me out with some guidance.

Thanks and regards.

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Anonymous Poster
#1

Re: Translating a Book

11/28/2009 2:53 AM

You may be able to use this program to scan in French with OCR (text recognition)

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/1996-simpleocr.html

and then cut and paste into Google Translate.

(however equations, graphs, etc .. may need to be done manually)

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Anonymous Poster
#2

Re: Translating a Book

11/28/2009 10:54 PM

From a technical standpoint, it can probably be scanned. The notion that you can apply some canned translation software to translate a technical publication is wildly unrealistic. Also, consider that you would probably be violating copyright laws. So, I would say "NO."

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#3

Re: Translating a Book

11/29/2009 12:14 AM

You are allowed to legally translate a book or journal you own or have borrowed for your own personal use. You can not further distribute, give or sell the translation onwards.

The OCR method will work as feed for Google translate. It does only short passages, so a book will need repeated re-submission of short passages and it is not very good on literature such as Voltaire, but it is not bad at technical word lookups. You will have to do the last bit of comprehension your self from the fractured English Google generates.

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#4

Re: Translating a Book

11/29/2009 12:16 AM

Have you ever tried one of those online translation programs, eg babelfish?

You should also try translating something into another language and then translating the result back to your own language. The results can be hilarious.

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#5
In reply to #4

Re: Translating a Book

11/29/2009 12:55 AM

yes, it fails on sequential language transliteration/translations.

That is why the human is needed to rationalize the first output

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#6

Re: Translating a Book

11/29/2009 4:43 AM

If you yourself (I assume you are the one wanting to make the translation) do not speak far better than average French, so that you can when a word is incorrectly translated by the software,and correct it, the results will be as good as useless......eg. a complete waste of your time.

There is no software around that can translate (especially technical books) accurately so that you understand what was originally meant.....

Non technical writings will still be at best "Quaint" after translation!!! Look at the booklets written by Japanese and Chinese technical writers that come with electronic articles......it does not take 2 minutes of reading to know that no English person did the translation.

Then there are the technical manuals that are translated by professional English translators, these you can tell because the English is good, but as the person either did not have the equipment to play with, or they simply did not understand fully how it worked, therefore the translation, although in almost perfect English, makes no sense in important/complicated areas.......

Which is why such translations should be made by native (in this case for example) English speaking people who are fluent in the language to be translated and have technical knowledge of the subject and the equipment to play with.....

Do please also remember, you are only good when translating from the original language INTO your own....not the other direction.

I have read several manuals/books that were translated in the other direction (English translations of Günther Grass's Novels for example made by a German Doctor. On every second page there is a small failure or so in the translation......

Many years ago I had to translate several French computer manuals into English (using a typewriter by the way!), even my then Belgian/French girlfriend of the time, who also spoke very good English, was not, could not be very helpful......it was a long hard job. If I had not also had the equipment to play with, I doubt if I would have achieved what I did.....but I was technically used to such equipment and I had the equipment....and a native English speaker!!

Sorry to be such a wet blanket.....but do let us know how you get on.....

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#14
In reply to #6

Re: Translating a Book

11/30/2009 1:42 AM

Hi Andy,

I think this may fit your entry into the 'quaint' label!

From a Datsun car site: ...

"Fall down the rear seat back to the floor and insert the two stopper male on the top."?

Good luck and happy holiday!

BAD TRANSLATIONS from Nissan's manuals

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#16
In reply to #14

Re: Translating a Book

11/30/2009 3:31 PM

Well done, exactly what I meant, if not actually even better!!

Many thanks.

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#18
In reply to #16

Re: Translating a Book

12/02/2009 7:54 PM

Hi Andy,

Yes, its not bad its it!

Found it completely by accident as well. I find some of the best translation errors are in the explanation booklets which have about a dozen Languages in? They usually come with most electrical stuff. Hilarious sometimes! ROTFL

Good luck and happy holidays

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#7

Re: Translating a Book

11/29/2009 7:53 AM

Hi waues,

I have found that Google and Yahoo have 'in-house' Translators, but it often helps to know roughly what has been translated to check for any obvious mistakes?

On the Technical side, I search for 'technical ocr translators'. I have not used these so you may have to try some, and compare your results to see again, if there is any obvious errors.

You may also want to rearrange the way the translated document appears. When translating technical articles, it can be critical to a meaning or size if one line in a paragraph was split. So it always helps to glance at the translation. You may also be able to choose a more suitable Font? And double check any Math which has been part of the translation, as this to can sometimes end up not making sense!

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#9
In reply to #7

Re: Translating a Book

11/29/2009 11:22 PM

Great Efforts and great ocean of information. GA from me

Regards,

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#12
In reply to #9

Re: Translating a Book

11/30/2009 12:35 AM

Hi gsuhas,

Many thanks for your mention and GA!

Yes, translation is a minefield. Even a human can make mistakes which may make certain arguments in the technical translation meaningless. Nonetheless, I think we have no choice but to translate sometimes, and perhaps the translation and an added proviso the article has been translated, and perhaps the original language and perhaps also the program used for the translation, could cover most scenarios?

I thank you for your indulgence and wish you a happy holiday

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#8

Re: Translating a Book

11/29/2009 3:37 PM

Bless you Baby Bear. You have the most responsive answer here and certainly have my vote for best answer. You have not only provided us the time of day, you have instructed us how to build a grand complication that would humble Patek Phillipe!

As reflected by many enlightened answers above, the notion that a canned translation program would even get you in the ballpark is unrealistic and any suggestion otherwise raises false expectations. Anyone who knows more than one language understands that no computer program can provide anything even approaching an "exact translation," the holy grail pursued by "monoglots." Sorry to deliver bad news but better bad news than to embark on a fool's errand and spend a lot of time on it.

The fact that this is technical material requiring precision of translation makes this possibility even more remote. These free translation programs do a mediocre job, at best, of translating the common, every day speech they are intended for. A technical article would end up being useless gibberish. I don't want to appear overly negative, but time is all we really have on this earth- don't waste it.

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#11
In reply to #8

Re: Translating a Book

11/30/2009 12:26 AM

Hi Guest,

What you could do perhaps is to try and get the individual technical details translated by themselves. Then reintroduce them to the paper you are writing? I have done it in a small way by translating to French and German each single word.......... Hard work!

But when a Language has both 'Male' and 'Female' meanings, you really need to know the difference otherwise the whole finished page can appear to 'jump about' between yours, and mine, his and hers,..................... Etc.

Unfortunately the details I mention here are on another HDD which is kaput!

Good luck and happy holidays.

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#17
In reply to #11

Re: Translating a Book

12/01/2009 9:57 AM

Good luck to you also Baby Bear and happy holidays. And thank you again for your post, as the information has come in handy. I do legal and technical translations for a living and use all tools at my disposal, despite the fact that I am expert in the languages I work in. Luckily, I expect to be retired before the translation software puts me out of business!

Thanks also to the gentleman who began this thread. I think we were all enlightened by it. God placed a marvelous computer between our ears and it is gratifying to know that despite consuming only 20 watts, it can still exceed the abilities of the mightiest supercomputers at certain tasks. Perhaps you can interest a French/English native speaker in the content of your book or a group of young language students who might take it on as a challenge.

My best to all.

Ramon Alvarez Aguera

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#10

Re: Translating a Book

11/30/2009 12:15 AM

Thanks so much for all your replies, especially the replies that have lead from obvious research into the posed query.

I am now convinced that, on this matter, the technological world has not advanced as far as I had been hoping!

Regards to all.

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#13
In reply to #10

Re: Translating a Book

11/30/2009 12:44 AM

Hi waues,

Perhaps you are correct. But translation from single words, to idioms, to sentences and phrases and paragraphs, and finally to whole documents, is necessarily done each day many millions of times. As I say in a previous post, as long as a proviso is written in the document you sent saying it has been translated........................

People, and individuals to whom you are sending are probably 'acquaintances by then and would understand the situation, because from their point of view they will have had to do the same, perhaps in a reply back to you?

Good luck and thank you for bringing the interesting subject up as a thread.

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#15

Re: Translating a Book

11/30/2009 2:24 PM

Echoing the comments of others. The short answer is, "It can be done, but not well."

The suggested translators will provide many hours of amusement and frustration, with more of the latter.

While I am fluent in French, those tricky technical words trip you up. Too, one subtle point is that to purify the French language and keep out all those nasty foreign words, there is a unique vocabulary, en francais, for each technical word. For example, computer is "un ordinateur" and software is, "la logiciel."

And if you are not yet sufficiently dissuaded, consider the legal implications of an accident resulting from a mis-translation.

Bonne Chance! Vous aurez besoin de lui.

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