Translation Software

[chrissa1]

Can anyone recommend good software that would translate say, Spanish/English and visa versa?

[mxyzptlk]

Google language tools

[chrissa1]

I'm really looking for one that would read scanned documents and translate them back and forth. Does Google Tools do this?

[ChuckFickens]

You need two separate bits of software, and unfortunately both sorts are well known for being very flaky at getting good results.

To convert a scanned document into a format the computer understands as text (rather than just a picture of some writing) you need optical character recognition software (OCR). there are a few free ones about, but I've not a free one that is really good, and even the paid for ones can and do make mistakes so you have to proof read and edit out all the mistakes once it's been converted (if you have office installed microsoft one-note will do OCR)

Then you need translation software (or a website), there are loads of them availble, such as http://babelfish.yahoo.com/ . But again the results from any translation software is ropey. all languages use a different sentence structure and the best any translation software can do is translate each word individually and they don't take into account the context the words are in, which leaves the end result at best, just about understandable and at worst total jibberish.

For an example of how bad translation software is I'm going to translate this sentence into Spanish and then translate the Spanish translation straight back to English.

So in spanish it reads... (I don't speak Spanish, but I bet this is crap Spanish)

Por un ejemplo de cómo el maÌn software de la traducción es I' m que va a traducir esta oración a español y después a traducir la traducción española derecho de nuevo a inglés.

And then straight back to English and it comes out as...

By an example of how maÌ  n software of the translation is I' m that is going to translate this oration to Spanish and later to translate the Spanish translation straight again

[chrissa1]

Thanks Chuck, I see what you mean. I'll have a good look around. Cheers.

[mike11111]

For the reasons Chuck gives, machines never can, and never will be able to, translate from one language to another except on a word by word basis, which as he points out, usually ends up in gibberish. The only way is via someone proficient in the foreign language. This is one field in which computers will never replace humans.

[chrissa1]

That's good to hear I suppose Mike. Thanks.

[rojash]

"and never will be able to"...
Woohoo, you'll be telling us next that they never will be able to win at chess :-)

[mike11111]

Don't be stupid. Chess is finite, language isn't!

[modeller]

Even translating a single word can result in a number of answers and when combined with one or two other words the meanings are multiplied. Remember even in our own language there can be misunderstanding especially in different parts of the country.