Quickly And Rudimentarily Translate A Foreign Language Document

 This is intended to be a quick tutorial with some hints towards quickly translating foreign languages. These tactics work best when the document to be translated is in electronic format. Otherwise you will have to manually type in that which needs to be translated. Bear in mind this method is not fully accurate or foolproof, and is only intended to give a quick, rough approximation of the meaning.

The quickest, easiest way to translate a foreign language document or Web page is to use Babelfish, a service provided by AltaVista that translates among 19 pairs of languages. Babelfish works best when the text to be translated uses proper grammar and punctuation. It does not provide a polished, perfectly accurate translation and can only give the basic gist of the text.

Here are the Babelfish instructions taken from the Babelfish "Help" page and slightly modified:

Translate Your Own Text

Type or paste text in the "Translate A Block Of Text" box.

Select the language pair from the list that you are translating from and into.

Click Translate.

Babelfish translates up to a 150 words of text at a time. To translate more than a 150 words of text, cut and paste a small section at a time until complete. Open a word processing window to paste translated text into if desirous of reading the translated text in totality when translation is finished.

Translate A Web Page

Enter the page address to translate in the "Translate A Web Page" text box.

Select the language pair from the list.

Click Translate.

Babelfish translates individual Web pages up to 10K. When you click a link within a translated page, the linked page will be automatically translated.

Enter Special Characters

To enter accented or foreign characters, click the "World Keyboard" link. A virtual keyboard appears onscreen. Add characters to the text box by clicking the keys or typing with your physical keyboard. The World Keyboard link turns your physical keyboard into the international keyboard of your language choice.

To return the physical keyboard to normal operation, click the close box on the virtual keyboard. After closing the keyboard, press Ctrl-K to use it again.

To enter accents, first click the accent and then the character it appears with. To type this with capital letters, click the Shift key and then the letter.

Be sure your Windows control panel keyboard is set to English. World Keyboard does not run on Macs.

Babelfish is not intended to translate large documents in entirety. To translate a large document, cut and paste it, sections at a time, up to 150 words, until you have completed this task.

Free Translation And Professional Translation Services

www.freetranslation.com offers an Internet based language translation page similar to Babelfish and has the same rudimentary limits. This site offers commercial paid translation services if a precise, accurate translation is needed.

dictionary.reference.com/translate/text.html has a translator similar to those above with similar limits.

Bear in mind the above sites only provide a literal translation of the words and do not factor nuances such as grammar, punctuation, cultural sensitivities/meanings, etc in context. It is possible the intended meaning of the translated text will not come through at times. For occasions where an accurate translation is vital, hire a professional or have someone fluent in the language translate it for you.