is there a good on line translator?

Question

i've seen people ask questions about what does 'such-and-such' in language 'so-and-so' mean, and often someone say's: well, bablefish says it means 'this-and-that', and that is a word for word translation, no sentence structure, and the wrong translation of words which ( like most words ) have more than one meaning so the result is complete nonsense.

i've tried freetranslation dutch->english
du 'houd je harses', meaning eng 'please shut up' and get the translation 'hold your resin'. case in point.

Answer 1

I just feel sorry for people thinking that their translation in correct after putting a sentence through an on-line translator, despite the fact that half of the words wasn't even translated at all and a lot of the other words just came out wrong. (Do people really think that a words never got more than one meaning or definition?! And do they believe that an on-line translator can read their minds about what definition they were after?)

So, my answer is NO and that's why I like the language section in Yahoo answers (and other similar sites BTW) so much. You get real answers (hopefully) from real people (hopefully).

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that people try to answer in their best way, I just say I feel sorry for those thinking that a computer based translation is the best way to go.

Answer 2

Never found one, and doubt there can ever be such a thing. There is too much "human" in language for a good translation to be done by a machine. And really, if they could build computers that translate well and accurately, there wouldn't be university degrees given in translation, and real human translators wouldn't have a job. As long as those two stand, it means online translators suck.

Answer 3

Comprendium Translater

Answer 4

The only thing an online translator is good for is giving you something of a draft translation, or the gist of the original meaning, and sometimes it won't give you the right translations. For example, I listen to German pop music, and one of the artists I listen to is Juliane Werding. Babelfish, for example, would translate her name literally as "Juliane who thing".

As a more extreme example, one of her songs is "Sie weiß, was sie will." The title properly translates as "She knows what she wants," but you'd have a hard time getting that translation out of Babelfish. "Sie" (she) can also mean "you" in the formal address or "they", or even "it" as used as an indirect object. "Weiß" (knows) can also mean "white". So Babelfish might give you any variation such as "you knows, what wants it" or "she white, what wants her". Language is a complex thing, and artificial intelligence technology hasn't yet reached the point where online translation utilities can be programmed to take context into account to a degree like this. Even idioms would need to be programmed--the German equivalent of "don't count your chickens before they've hatched", for example, translates to "don't divide the bear skin before you kill the bear"--and because there are so many of them in each language, such a programming task would be time-consuming. Bottom line is, the answer is no, there aren't any good online translation utilities yet.

If you already have some command of a language that you're translating into, online translation utilties can be used as a tool to check any translation of your own--it's enough to give you feedback on whether you're on the right track vis-a-vis vocabulary and/or word order, or it can also provide some suggestions for alternate translations. When I translate the lyrics of the German artists I listen to, I run them through Babelfish, but then I look at the translation, suspect some words to be incorrectly translated, and check with my dictionary to make sure.

Answer 5

There is no such thing as a good online translator.
Machines are just not up to it yet.
Do not put your trust into babel fishes!

Answer 6

I like this one.

Answer 7

google translator isn't bad...

Answer 8

I'm good and I'm online. :-)