[Publib] AltaVista Babelfish

[Beverly Michaels]

To get an idea of what Daniel means by "much worse than a real translation", and to get some insight into the difficulties of translation in general, you might want to check out this website:
http://www.tashian.com/multibabel/

Having worked for several years as an editor of translated texts (translated into English from various European and Central Asian languages) I can attest that even a "simple" translation can wind up being virtually incomprehensible...

Beverly Michaels
Circulation Services
Tredyffrin Public Library
610-688-7092, ext 201


-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org]On Behalf Of Hersh, Daniel
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 6:42 PM
To: 'Posedel, Emily'; publib at webjunction.org
Subject: RE: [Publib] AltaVista Babelfish


I use it.  It's much better than no translation at all, and much worse than
a real translation.  Try translating text from any other language into
English and you'll see what I mean--you may well get a decent general idea
of what the text was about, but the output will not be close to idiomatic
English.

Daniel Hersh
Oakland Public Library
dhersh at oaklandlibrary.org

-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org]
On Behalf Of Posedel, Emily
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 3:42 PM
To: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Publib] AltaVista Babelfish

I was wondering if anyone has experience with AltaVista's Babelfish.  How
accurate is the translation?  An example of a site with this tool is
<http://www.lavergne.org/> .  Thanks.

Emily Posedel
Web Content Specialist
Access Services & Training Division
San Diego County Library
858.694.2449
www.sdcl.org

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