With a community as vast as the Internet, it is common to encounter someone who does not speak your language. Thankfully, in the modern world you can still communicate with them, by having the assistance of an online translation tool. Also, they can come in handy for linguists to help make sure they make sense.

There are many online translators, the biggest being Babel Fish and Google Language Tools. Out of these two, I find Babel Fish the best.

There are other translators. Some are specialised, and some offer more languages than the two I’ve just mentioned.

I have decided to compile a list of translation tools:

Non-Specialised:

• Babel Fish is a common translation site powered by Systran. An identical application (different design) is available on both Yahoo! and Altavista. It has quite a lot of languages, allows web page translation and also has a handy World Keyboard which allows input of Cyrillic and accented letters. Naturally, no online translator is perfect - but this one does quite well.
• Google Language Tools is another common translator. It has a web page translator, like Babelfish, but doesn’t boast languages such as Russian nor does it have a World Keyboard. However, it handily integrates into Google search results!
• WorldLingo’s Translator shares the same languages as Google’s but it has a text, website, and email translator. The downside is it’s plastered with adverts.
• InterTran is a translator which provides many more languages that Babel Fish. Languages include Latin, Welsh, Turkish, Filipino, Icelandic, and even Serbian! Great you think? Nope. It can only handle a few requests every minute, which means often translations bring up an error. This can naturally be fixed by buying expensive software
• im Translator offers a few languages, but not as many as any other tool I’ve listed. The useful feature it gives you a back translation, so you can see if the translation is satisfactory.
• AjaxTrans, as you may have guessed, is an AJAX translator. it only translates into Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese.

Specialised services:

• dict.cc is a German dictionary. Okay, not a translator. A dictionary. Still, it is by far the best resource for the German language.
• The Universal Translator Assistant Project translates from and into Klingon, Romulan and Vulcan. The Universal Translator itself can’t convert quite a lot of words, but if you use the provided Galatic Dictionary you can translate those missing words.

Personally, I find InterTran very useful, though not very reliable.

Qapla’

Tags: translation, translator, AJAX, online translation, star trek, klingon language