|
|
Post by davx on Jan 21, 2012 22:02:17 GMT
Hello,
translating contents is at least for some of us a vital part in this international exchange of experience and knowledge.
Thus I thought to dedicate a thread the improvement of understanding.
But for the beginning I ask me, which languages have our members to deal with?
German - English
Slovenian - English
Czech - English
Noregian - English
French - English
Other languages? Dutch? Dansk? Swedish? Spanish? ...
|
|
|
|
Post by davx on Jan 21, 2012 22:09:35 GMT
For the translation German - English or the other way round, we have a really good tool helping us with a huge pool of translations: dict.leo.org/Aside this the translator also understands french, spanish, italian and even chinese. The only disadvantage is the strong focus on german, so we cannot recommend it e.g. for translation French - English or English - Spanish etc. Another great tool is the Wikipedia project. You can find here nearly everything and often there are linked articles concerning the same topic in other languages. I use this very often and often I also can learn, when I compare the articles in the different languages. www.wikipedia.org |
|
|
|
Post by NightwishRaven999 on Jan 21, 2012 22:23:37 GMT
Google Translate is actually fairly accurate when translating English to French.
The problem is translating French to English...many words that are translated from French to English do not carry the same meaning and no longer make sense once translated.
On the other hand, it is very easy to take an English text and translate it into French.
In this case, English is more plain and straight forward, making it easy to grasp even from a translation.
I am guessing this is a problem with all languages of Latin origin. Google Translate is still not comprehensive enough to encompass the masculine and feminine...which is as important as ABC when writing or reading French.
|
|
|
|
Post by davx on Jan 22, 2012 0:05:08 GMT
But at least the masculine/feminine problem I think is solvable with some kind of dictionary-table storing the gender/sex(?) of the concerning word. The real problem I think is when words stands for totally different things but are written the same way and the structure of complex sentences, e.g.
Elle me l'a donné (she gave it to me... I hope I wrote it right)
In spanish this is even more complicated because reflexive pronouns are appended at the end of the verb, e.g.:
dar = to give [=indicative mode]
da = give (me) [=imperative]
dame = give me
damelo = give it to me
But in indicative mode "da" can also mean "he gives", while "das" is the correct form for "you give".
In other words so simple and short this spanisch words looks like, they are really complicated to understand for people not profound familiar to Spanish as well as machines too. Especially machines need logic and non-ambiguous structures. They can't use long learning experience, gut feeling and common sense.
|
|
|
|
Post by davx on Jan 22, 2012 0:20:52 GMT
I will go a step ahead give an example terms confusing me:
stack and pile
I intended to use stack several times and I had the impression that it was wrong, because (that is my interpretation, correct me if I'm wrong) size matters. Stack remembers me to hay stack, it is big, but in german you use the same term for the (hay) stack as for a pile of cloths, hay or stones. In such a case the dictionaries fails often if they want to translate the word without the concept behind. In such cases I had the impression definition dictionaries are much better, because even when they describe a word in a foreign language, it often gives the needed clues for the concept behind.
But there is also a trick working with bilingual dictionaries: crosschecking, that means check e.g. the translation English -> German, then check the different suggestions back: German -> Englisch and compare which term has the best fitting suggestions.
|
|
|
|
Post by bijett on Jan 22, 2012 10:04:57 GMT
www.linguee.fr is quite a good resource as it gives you example of translation so you can find words and expressions in context. I don't rate google translate very much unless you know how to use it. I see too many of the kids I teach typing "that" into google translate and then writing things such as "Je pense cela" instead of "je pense que" in their work.
|
|
|
|
Post by Maravilla on Jan 22, 2012 12:57:57 GMT
At least for translations German-English I prefer www.dict.cc . They offer other languages as well but at least for Spanish-German I think that contents are less accurate and extensive than www.leo.org . |
|
|
|
Post by davx on Jan 22, 2012 15:29:15 GMT
bijettThank you for the tip. Linguee is also available in English - German and some other languages. But one thing we should keep in mind, Linguee uses texts in different languages from the web and at least some of them containing mistakes. By the way, I saw that when I searched for "degu" linguee also showed my homepage (my cage calculator) in the results. @marlén Is dict.cc better than leo?
|
|
|
|
Post by Maravilla on Jan 22, 2012 16:05:29 GMT
I don't know if it is really better, but I consider it better than leo... at least for English-German and vice versa translations.
|
|
|
|
Post by NightwishRaven999 on Jan 22, 2012 17:53:42 GMT
www.linguee.fr is quite a good resource as it gives you example of translation so you can find words and expressions in context. I don't rate google translate very much unless you know how to use it. I see too many of the kids I teach typing "that" into google translate and then writing things such as "Je pense cela" instead of "je pense que" in their work. Haha ! You teach French ? |
|
|
|
Post by bijett on Jan 22, 2012 20:45:37 GMT
www.linguee.fr is quite a good resource as it gives you example of translation so you can find words and expressions in context. I don't rate google translate very much unless you know how to use it. I see too many of the kids I teach typing "that" into google translate and then writing things such as "Je pense cela" instead of "je pense que" in their work. Haha ! You teach French ? Yes, French and beginners Spanish. |
|
19Uhr30
Warbling Degu
Keep calm and DFTBA
Posts: 40
|
Post by 19Uhr30 on Feb 10, 2012 21:45:40 GMT
I don't know if it is really better, but I consider it better than leo... at least for English-German and vice versa translations. I prefer leo. The translation options are mostly the same. But leo also displays links to forum discussions about the proper translation in certain contexts. That is really helpful from time to time. That's how I learned that I did not have to translate "Kohlrabi" at all, because it is such a german vegetable that it is just not tranlated most of the time. |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 19, 2012 2:05:53 GMT
I took a look at dict.cc and the English - Norwegian dictionary seems very accurate. When I encounter websites in a language I don't know I usually let Google Chrome translate them to English for me, and it does a fairly good job of it. I let it translate my own degu website ( www.degusnorge.com) to English, and it came out with a few rather funny translations, but all in all it's readable. While translating the names of edible plants, seeds and branches etc. I have used the Wikipedia method and that has worked really well so far  |
|
