Oh yes, Anne, for oneself it is fine, and one can manipulate the stuff pretty well. That's what I have to do when I use it with French, but don't do like some students do -using it in resum?s to land a summer job in Germany ! Marta On Feb 17, 2005, at 14:11, Anne Cartwright wrote:
> Marta and others, > > I think after you read any of the translations to English, you get > the idea that Bablefish is not perfect. It is good for a laugh and if > you have some idea of the information in the "foreign language" you > are trying to translate to English, you can usually work out the > details. Actually, in some of the translation I have done (for myself) > I have often left the strange English in to perhaps convey some subtle > (?) information in the original. Anyway, definitely good for a laugh. > But then much of what I write in English is too. > > Anne > > > On Thursday, February 17, 2005, at 01:42 PM, Marta Edie wrote: > >> As I was reading the Macuser newsletter and found the mention of >> Babelfish translations, I want to sound a warning. Please never use >> this site if you need a translation for other than personal use, >> i.e. any official purpose , or don't want to embarrass yourself to >> speakers of a foreign language, or believe when you put in a foreign >> language block you get a meaningful translation of what the author >> really said - I used to make use of this website when I needed a >> hearty laugh - the nonsense that came out of those translations and >> the utter contrived sentence structure could make you wince. Maybe >> it has gotten better over the years. - Just this morning , though, >> an example : "scienstists of this country" in a sequence was >> translated into :Landwissenschaftler whatever that might mean, ( >> scientists who study land or soil?)---- the plain old word "Mutter" ( >> mother ) used in a block of writing from German to English came >> through as a" screw" - I suppose because the feminine part of a >> screw , what we call a "nut" is called "Mutter" in German. It is one >> of those words with double meaning. --This site is perhaps good in >> translating words--- but the meaning leaves a lot to be desired. - I >> don't underestimate the daunting task of the writers of this website, >> but I would bet that what you get is often far from the meaning >> you want to convey. I like the name of the site, though, it does >> tell you they are fishing in the sea of multiple tongued creatures, >> and it isn't easy to come up with the right fish. Translators often >> need days or months to come up with a viable translation of a foreign >> article or piece of fiction- ( and even then so often fall short when >> it comes to subtleties) that it is understandable that these quicky >> translations must contain errors . >> Marta -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 2831 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.math.louisville.edu/pipermail/macgroup/attachments/20050217/37f17b77/attachment.bin
