On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, mike wrote:
> I have a question, when I'm on my many searchs for answers I come > across pages in different languages (my native is english). > I use Google and it translates some, not always that well though. > > Is there a linux program I can use to translate pages or is there a > better aproach? > > Any help would be appreciated.
Hello Mike:
I do a bit of computer translation as well, mostly using my machine as an electronic dictionary when I must read materials in French or German or look into the subtelties of some ancient Greek or Hebrew passage. I don't know of anything that runs natively on Linux that does the sort of thing I need: I had to buy vmware and install Windows under Linux to get that functionality (I sorely hope I made a big mistake and overlooked some Linux program[s], but I doubt it). I do occasionally want to translate a longer passage to figure out some wierd or unfamiliar syntax or idiom, and the program I use for that is called Systran. It does ok, but must always be double-checked by someone who at least knows the grammatical conventions of the language being translated and can use a dictionary. That's a Windows program though. I tried getting it to install and work under WINE/Codeweavers, but had no success. If I were more of a hacker I might be able to figure out why and get it running. But I'm just a lowly humanties scholar :). In summary, I don't think you'll find anything at all that runs under Linux that will do machine translation. If you find such a thing, I'd love to know about it. The only thing you'll probably find will be languageA -> languageB dictionaries. Using the online translators like Google has (Altavista has one too--not sure how/if it differs) is about the best bet. You might also, as a slightly different approach to that same method, look into Firefox's extensions: if there's not already a page translating extension, I'd be surprised if someone doesn't create one soon.
Relative to your comments, James, I fear I can only echo your lack of success. I recently was investigating, specifically, English-Spanish translation. While I did find a couple of Linux apps that function at the dictionary level ... translating words and short phrases, but with no sensitivity to context ... I found nothing in the way of babelfish-like translation for Linux.
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