Re: translating web pages

[Ray Olszewski <ray@comarre.com>]

At 05:00 PM 11/21/2004 -0600, James Miller wrote:
>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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