--- Forwarded Message from "Bennett (Bigben) Blaustein" <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date:         Wed, 21 Nov 2001 22:31:00 -0500
>From: "Bennett (Bigben) Blaustein" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject:      Re: #6388Translation software
>To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]

On Fri, 9 Nov 2001 08:04:39 EST, LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>
>>Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 09:31:21 -0500
>>From: Sandra Brookner <[log in to unmask]>
>>Subject: Translation software
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>User-Agent: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 5.01 (1630)
>
>Our local high school has asked if we know of any software that can
>translate documents from English to Spanish.  The school is now mandated to
>provide many of its documents for parents (handbooks, newsletters, etc) in
>Spanish as well as in English.  He is hoping for an easy, inexpensive way
>to follow this directive.
>
>We have told him we doubt there is any reliable way to do this
>electronically but I was asked to check with the list.


As others have mentioned, the quality of automatic translation systems will
not hold up to the quality that has been mandated. I have helped with the
design of several machine translation applications and at best you can
achieve 85% accuracy in the translation. Althought that level of quality may
sound very good, the final 15% can make the comprehensiveness a dismal
failure.

I do recommend automatic translation when there are NO other alternatives to
communication or when the sender and the reciever of the communication are
aware of the systems limitations and are comfortable working with gisting.
In your case, you should use a human translator.

If you do wish to try several translation systems then you may want to visit
my "Free Online Translation Services" webpage located at:

http://www.word2word.com/free.html

I recommend testing using the online systems since the developers are always
doing upgrades to then and the quality has increased over time.

If you wish to see one of the systems I have worked on then you can visit my
"Word2Word Translating Chat" webpage located at:

http://www.word2word.com/word.html

The chat system allows for realtime communication between English, French,
German, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish.

Best Regards,

Bennett (Bigben)
Owner and Developer
Word2Word Language Resources
http://www.word2word.com