Translator trouble

[Guest Paul B]

I am looking for a program, for my wife, that will display the English translation of a chinese word when the cursor is placed on it. Does anyone know where I can purchase something like this. I think it is called a pop-up translator. I have tried all of the local software places but I have not found anything. I downloaded NJstar but I cannot get it to work properly.

[david_dawei]

KingSoft's "Powerword" does this... I have it loaded on my computer. It loads in memory and acts as a 'cursor over translator', but you can also just into its dictionary.

 

WHen the cursor is over a word, it will do it both directions:

 

IF the word is in English, then the chinese is displayed; if the word is in Chinese, then the English is displayed. When over a word, you can also 'hear' the word in both english or chinese (based on which direction the translation is at the time).

 

If you do a search for "Powerword" in your browser, you should find many returns.

[Dan R]

This sounds very usueful, I'll look into it. Thanks!

 

How accurate do you find tthe English to Chinese translation? I would think this is difficult since the English is more a matter of the context of the word.

[warpedbored]

We have Kingsoft power word too. It works fine for one word but for whole sentences it is confusing since it translates each Chinese character individually.

[david_dawei]

Dan,

 

I think I know what you mean.. I might use the word "go" in a number of sentences, but the sense and translation to chinese could be a few different words. I tested a few variations.

 

It's apparent that the software attempts to 'reads ahead' to determine any context. So that it translated "I must go" and "I must go back home" differently. But the first one showed many of the variations for "go", so in come cases, it is not only giving one translated character.

 

Another piece of evidence that it 'reads ahead' is that it translates compound characters to English correctly. So that: "ming tian" = tomorrow, when you put the cursor over "ming"... (you do not get "bright", as the word would mean by itself)

 

As for translating sentences.. even the web translators don't do that good of a job... but that's what I usually use.

[jt1832]

I have this set up at the office for a few of our chinese scientists. They do like the english to chinese translation. Saves them some time finding it in the C-E dictionary. I agree with the recommendation. Works well even for scientific words if you load that part.

[skibum]

My wife uses "Jin Shan Ci Ba" which she downloaded free from a Chinese site. You can do a search for it in Chinese not Pinyan.

 

It makes for a noisy computer room!

[skibum]

Forgpt tp say that it only works with Win XP

[amerchin]

This might be slightly off the subject but it's for all those out there looking for a cheap alternative translator without having to deal with software. This translator is free to try out. It's strictly an English language to whatever language you chose translator. In other words if you type your SO's pinyin name to be translated it will not do it. If you want a plain sentence or paragraph translated quickly this is the translator to use. Surprise your sweetheart with a Chinese email instead of an English written one. She'll probably get a kick out of it!

 

The address to the site is:

 

http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_serv...translator.html.

 

Type in the word(s) or paragraph in english, then translate it to the language you want. This should be simplified Chinese from the pull down menu. Copy the Chinese translation. Start up your email and paste the Chinese characters to your email. There's no software needed when all you do is copy and paste.

[david_dawei]

The address to the site is:

 

http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_serv...translator.html.

I have tested a lot of web translators and they are all very close in translation ability.

 

I found Wordlingo to be very slow compared to others... BUT ! If I have a character not translating a chinese character in another one, I'll use Wordlingo then since it is better database of chinese characters.

 

I prefer for English to Chinese , for speed: http://www.babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr

 

 

When in China, www.165net.com is clearly the best translator I've seen.. but I have a hard time to connect to it from the US.

[amerchin]

Any translators used has to be in simple English otherwise the translation will be wrong. I just hope everyone understands this. If they don't write in simple English the other party won't understand what you're trying to say and or they will be laughing at your email.

[Feathers268]

I've been happy with babelfish from altavista. Not sure of the exact address, but do a search, and it comes up. I'm sure it's not perfect, but it seems to work as long as you are carful on how you write sentences.

[david_dawei]

I gave the web link to babelfish in my previous post..

 

I agree with the 'simple english comments'... as I continue to learn chinese, I even try to keep the sentence order of the English to what the Chinese would want.

 

Besides laughing at your poorly translated email, there can be misunderstanding or simply 'wrong' translations.

 

Also, keep sentences very short, the translations work better. If your SO sends messages to you in Chinese character, the same applies... Ask for very short sentence. I've had instances of some of the longest letters without hardly any "periods" from my SO...

 

The other thing I discovered is that sometimes a 'double negative' statement is not translated correctly. and can end up saying the opposite of what you want. Again, just make them two sentences if needed or KEEP IT SIMPLE.

 

I have translated English to Chinese, then back to English to see what is "lost".. often I will revise the letter and simplify further.

 

The ongoing joke with Zixuan and me is that we revealed to each other there is a small amount of "guessing" we add to the translating process.

 

Now I am at the point where I can review some of what I say. The more i learn the more I see that the translations are not the best, but still essential for me.

[Guest Paul B]

Thanks everyone

 

I appreciate the help.

 

Paul B.