Translation Software.

[maniac]

Does anyone know of any good translation software that will translate word documents? Googling brings up loads of results, but the prices seem to vary for around £30 up to £100's

 

SLT want to translate a large amount of school documents to make it more accessible for students whose first language isn't english.

 

Any suggestions welcome.

 

Mike.

[TronXP]

http://babelfish.altavista.com/

 

We have used this in the past, you would have to copy/paste the document in, but it is free

[OutToLunch]

... Remembering to bear in mind any online translation can cause problems if you don't speak the second language yourself...

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/07/babel_fish_insults_dutch_foreign_minister/

 

Last weekend, a group of Israeli journalists used a translation engine in sending an email message to the Dutch Consulate in Tel Aviv. They wanted to discuss an upcoming visit to The Netherlands for a seminar on Dutch politics, but they ended up asking the minister several nonsensical questions about his mother.

 

"Helloh bud, Enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian, and on relational Israel Holland," the email began, before making several more references to the minister's mum.

 

I can see those being quite interesting policy documents!

[maniac]

Yeah, I've already advised SLT that the translations would need to be proof read before they could be used, but they are willing to take the risk!.

 

I've shown the babelfish already, but they're after something easier to use that will keep the document formatting etc.

 

Mike.

[SteveBentley]

If you want to demonstrate the dangers of online translations, take a passage of text, translate it to (say) French. Then translate the result back to English and compare and contrast.