Web-based Language Translation

A long time ago, when Alta-Vista (http://www.altavista.com) was a rising star of web search, I ran into their Babelfish translator.  This cool page (which is now accessed either at http://babelfish.altavista.com or via the "Translate" link at www.altavista.com, enables you to translate either small blocks of text or entire web pages.

The name comes from the tiny, instant-translator fish in the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.  (In the book, you stick the fish in your ear and instantly can understand any foreign language -- where can I get one of those?)

The site translates between any two languages from the set:  Chinese-simplified, Chinese-traditional, English, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.  If you click a link on the page you have translated, Babelfish will translate that page for you also.

Other translation sites I have used include Systran S.A.'s www.systransoft.com.  In fact, Systran's software powers the AltaVista Babelfish translator;  however, unlike Babelfish's operation, Systran's own site does not translate subsequent pages -- you have to process each individual page through the translator.

By the way, Systran makes several excellent translator packages for business and commercial use. Their products include add-ons as well as translation packages for Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel to be able to translate entire documents from language to language.

Google languages, at http://www.google.com/language_tools provides yet another translation service.  It is also a convenient interface to change the language of the Google interface from English to the language of your choice.

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Copyright © 2005-2006 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.