Is there a site where I can type in an email in German and get it translated
into English? Thanks in advance.
Bill Leichter
_wbl435@aol.com_ (mailto:wbl435@aol.com)
WBL435@aol.com wrote:
Is there a site where I can type in an email in German and get it translated into English? Thanks in advance.
Bill Leichter
_wbl435@aol.com_ (mailto:wbl435@aol.com)
There are a couple:
http://www.freetranslation.com/
But be aware that it doesn't give a totally accurate translation. And don't use it for translating from English to German if you want to send a letter in German - it's just too risky.
Hope that helps.
Mona
There are quite a few translation-sites... but the translation is bad and
sometimes even makes no sense whatsoever..
Try babelfish... seems the 'best' of all.
I am sure the ppl in the group will help, where they can !
Regards
Willemine
South africa
Hi Bill,
I use Google's Language Tools:
It's not good enough to send to a German speaking person. However, it
usually produces a translation that you can understand. It sometimes will
translate proper nouns (like a name) which can confuse things.
Barbara
WBL435@aol.com schrieb:
Is there a site where I can type in an email in German and get it translated into English? Thanks in advance.
Bill Leichter
_wbl435@aol.com_ (mailto:wbl435@aol.com)
TransServ – GenWiki tells you how to get a text translated by men rather than by a machine: start the email with the line
#GER>ENG
On the following lines type the text to be translated.
Send the mail to trans@genealogienetz.de
Für ein Übersetzungsprogramm ist es wichtig, kurze Sätze zu schreiben - je kürzer um so besser die Übersetzung.
Bei verschachtelten Sätzen kommt nur Unverständliches heraus.
Gruß Werner Honkomp
I agree that it's risky using a Babelfish-type
translation tool for correspondence. If you don't
speak German, look for someone who does correspondence
translation and charges by the word. As someone who
majored in German has done some translation, I can
tell you that the Babelfish-type things lack intuition
and sometimes you just need a human helping you.
There are just so many idioms and so many verb forms
to consider. ;}
*Kendal*
> Is there a site where I can type in an email in
German and get it translated
> into English? Thanks in advance.
> Bill Leichter
> _wbl435@aol.com_ (mailto:wbl435@aol.com)There are a couple:
http://www.freetranslation.com/
http://babelfish.altavista.com/But be aware that it doesn't give a totally accurate
translation. And
don't use it for translating from English to German
if you want to send
a letter in German - it's just too risky.Hope that helps.
Mona
--
Mona Houser
HeritageHunt@sandyview.info
Houser, Mueller, Labs, Schurdel, Schukar, Sasse, Rieckmann, and related Lines
______________________________________________Hannover-L mailing list
Hannover-L@genealogy.net
Why not try your local schools and talk to them..they might offer German and
have a teacher who might be willing to help.
This is what I did and with a great deal of luck.
Pat
To all who are interested in words:
This thread is interesting to me for personal and professional reasons. I do editing for journals that publish articles in English by authors whose first language is something else. Thus I am familiar with one of the problems bugging people on this list, which hinges on correct communication of intended meaning in translations. I don't have a full command of German so I rely on mechanical translators to get me started. I joined the Hannover List to have some interesting subjects for practice, as well as tracing my VOLLMER family history, and starting a BERGMANN search in the Engter and Syke areas.
I'm happy to see this dialogue get started because it is helpful to all. And I think it should go a little further for practical reasons. Like what? The prime question is what is the best translator? Through our dialogue we might find out which one is best at the moment. But this can change over time. For the sake of discussion I challenge the recommendation for Freetranslator.com. And I don't challenge Nikolaus Ordemann's recommendation to have a human do it because it should be better, and I don't use the service because I don't think one should expect someone to do this hard work for free.
Comparison of Freetranslation versus Google:
***** Original: Für ein Übersetzungsprogramm ist es wichtig, kurze Sätze zu schreiben - je kürzer um so besser die Übersetzung. Bei verschachtelten Sätzen kommt nur Unverständliches heraus. Gruß Werner Honkomp
Freetranslation: For a translation program, it is to be written important, short sentences - the more shortly all the more better the translation. In interlocked comes sentences only incomprehensible out. Greeting Werner Honkomp
###### Google: For a translation program it is important to write short sentences - the more briefly all the better the translation. With interlocked sentences only incomprehensible comes out. Greeting Werner Honkomp
Critique: In this example Google trumps over Freetranslation, and it has in my experience from the beginning. The notable error to English readers is the missing noun that is modified by the adjective "Unverständliches". Here one can say it is an adjective used as a noun, but in English it needs a noun - meaning. This truncation of expressions is practiced in all languages, so a good translation needs a human to fill the gaps.
The worst machine error in this example is the translation of verschachtelten to interlocked. It is slightly out of contextual bounds. It should have chosen "complex", which is about the fifth choice in a translation dictionary. Again, you need a human to fix this.
I would be curious if someone on our list can find a better free translation of the example above.
For words I use Babylon.com, the most convenient, and LEO.com, the most comprehensive.
Für jener, wer eine deutsche übersetzung möchten, mich lassen wissen. Ich tue mein bestes.
Sincerely,
Leon Follmer in Savoy, Illinois
[retired geologist]
Leon makes some good points. It would be nice if we could all have a human
involved in translations so they could select the best of several meanings.
I use AJAX translator for short paragraphs (it is limited to 500 characters)
because of its ease of use. This is what it does to the example Leon brings
up:
For a translation program it is important to write short sentences - the
more briefly all the better the translation. With interlocked sentences only
incomprehensible comes out.
Pretty much the same as Google and with the same problems, but better than
Babelfish.
Paul Scheele
We need also to understand that the various parts of speech are not in the same order in English as in German ..... so that is part of what causes problems in direct, literal translation.
Idioms are another problem. They usually make absolutely no sense!
And a third problem is with names of people and places. when Suzi Blankenheim is translated to English as Suzi Bright Home!
Maureen
The mechanical translators "lack intuition." Yes! Yes!
That's it exactly!
Thank you, Kendal! That's perfect!
Plus the problem that these languages were never cleverly designed all at the same time by the same
group of technical whiz-bang language engineers to perfectly mesh and exactly translate, like the gears
on a Mercedes, were they?
Grammar is different in every language, even in local
dialects. Nouns and verbs and modifiers appear in
different parts of the sentences in different languages. Some years ago I dated a guy who reminded me of my
mother's maternal family, so much so that I knew he would
fit in perfectly, and much of it was the way he spoke. Later I learned his ancestral village was perhaps 30k south
of ours!
One language has seven or ten different words, some of them
very different, that translate your one. How to choose what the writer meant without the aid of intuition?
How does a German (or the machine with no intuition) read your word "tear"? Which definition does it choose. English is a
tough one, there are so many of those! How about "polish"?
Or a "pole"?
And idioms make it seem the writer is insane, if you don't know them well (and the historical sense of them).
And how does one translate our spelling errors?
I tried 1) the reverse translation we've been talking about here,
and 2) then making my English more clear and easier to translate and rechecking several times until I got it "just right"
two years ago when making a hotel reservation by email at a tiny rural hotel in Uedelhoeven, Nordrhein-Westphalia, where
no one has heard English since school days. I got the reservations and a great room ..... and felt very, very proud of my cleverness ..... only much later did I learn that my genealogy-
correspondent in Uedelhoeven had stopped by and told them all about me and what we wanted!
Of course, we are also both distant cousins of the owner!
Maureen
Hi:
I am joining the Translation string on Maureen,s post, as it was the last one I recieved.
I have tried most of the electronic translators and find that the results are almost identical. They only translate words, not sentence structure. Their ease of usage varries.
1. They can give you a genersl idea of the contents.
2. Since the sentence structure is not there you are subject to misinterpertations.
3. If you use them in letters, you are down right rude.
4. They can be used somewhat efectively between German and English speakers, If both parties know that e-translations are being done.
5. I have heard some mention about Google translations. I don't know if this reference was to an e-translations like others, or Googles web site translator. If you pull up a web site Google will many times ask if you want a translation. These translations are quite good. However, since web sites don't change constantly like communications, I they are probably posted in both languages and you are simply selecting the one you want. I have no inside information on Google, so I am just speculating, but Google translated web sites are well done.
Gale
The messages below caught my attention first, but this is my second
response on the subject. I have studied languages for a long time and
this issue brought to mind a computer slogan that explains my experience
in general when translating by computer. The expression: "garbage in -
garbage out".
When "poor language" is put in the mechanical translator, the output
will be poor. The "machine" will not understand if you use "misleading
dialect", nor will anybody else who speaks a different dialect.
Misleading dialect is slang in the worst case and employs words and
phrases that literally mean something different. This is the cause of
bad translations in most cases. When you use good English, out comes
good German and vice versa. Overall the machine translator is smarter
than all of us put together; just remember that it can not read you
mind.
Poetry and related coded things are another matter. I don't suppose that
a computer translator will ever achieve a suitable translation of
current coded expressions. I find it interesting that when poetic
expressions become "universally" accepted they loose their poetic sense
and become a "normal idiom". Many words and expressions have evolved far
away from their original meaning. This is the way the system works. If
you don't see this you will someday. One does not become sensitive to
this until over 60.
Leon Follmer
AltaVista-Babel's version
"For a translation program it is important to write short sentences - the more briefly the better the translation. With interlocked sentences only incomprehensible comes out. Greeting Werner Honkomp"
One might say it is equal to and perhaps slightly better than the Google version.
Barney Speckman
WBL435@aol.com schrieb:
Is there a site where I can type in an email in German and get it translated
into English? Thanks in advance.
Bill Leichter
_wbl435@aol.com_ (mailto:wbl435@aol.com)
TransServ – GenWiki tells you how to get a text
translated by men rather than by a machine: start the email with the
line #GER>ENG On the following lines type the text to be translated.
Send the mail to trans@genealogienetz.de
--
Nikolaus (Ordemann)
Genealogische Homepage Ordemann und Ordemann - Alternativer Einstieg
Die genealogische Ordemann-Homepage
The (German language) genealogical Ordemann homepage
WBL435@aol.com schrieb:
Is there a site where I can type in an email in German and get it translated
into English? Thanks in advance.
Bill Leichter
_wbl435@aol.com_ (mailto:wbl435@aol.com)
TransServ – GenWiki tells you how to get a text
translated by men rather than by a machine: start the email with the
line #GER>ENG On the following lines type the text to be translated.
Send the mail to trans@genealogienetz.de
--
Nikolaus (Ordemann)
Genealogische Homepage Ordemann und Ordemann - Alternativer Einstieg
Die genealogische Ordemann-Homepage
The (German language) genealogical Ordemann homepage