Web-based Language Translators

[MRomanych]

Here are a few good sites. Each has its relative merits. Hopefully, you will find one that suits your needs.

Keep in mind that all sites have difficulty translating technical military terms. There are also problems if you cannot type in special characters such as vowels with umlauts (for example "ä"), accents, and particularly the German eszet or ess-tset – the letter “ß” that looks like an uppercase “B.” For that you may need a good dictionary.

Tips for translating German words:
1. When umlauts are not available, "ae", "oe", and "ue" can sometimes be substituted for "ä", "ö", and "ü".
2. When an ess-tset is not available try substituting a double “s” – i.e., “ss”.

Websites with standard features:
Google Language Tools: http://www.google.com/language_tools
Yahoo’s Babel Fish: http://babelfish.yahoo.com
Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/translate

Websites with special or unusual features:

Langenberg. This site has numerous translation options.
http://translation.langenberg.com

Mezzofanti Translations: This site has multiple translation engines.
http://www.mezzofanti.org/translation

WorldLingo. This sites allows translation for “special character set” languages.
http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_services/worldlingo_translator.html

PROMT-Online. This site allows you to type in special characters such as accents.
http://translation2.paralink.com

If you have success with any other language translation sites, please let us all know!

[RaymondG]

Hi Marc

Thanks for posting the resources. I have not used some of these but will give them a try.

Here is another one to add to the list www.freetranslation.com


Raymond

[Paul Giva]

Here is a link to an English-German dictionary that is similar to the open content, Wikipedia brand sites: http://www.dict.cc/?guess=right&word=Zeitabstand+%3D+interval

[Hans N]

Another one that is very good

http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

[MRomanych]

Thanks for the recommendations. I find that each translation program has it relative strengths and weaknesses. Also, personal preferences also dictate which program is most useful.