Folks:
Some of you are certainly aware of this, but for those of you who are not
this is potentially useful information. Altavista has a translator built
into its site. You can enter text, or even the url of a web page and get
it instantly translated. Supported languages are French, German, Italian,
Potuguese, Spanish, and, predictably, English. Japanese and Korean are in
the works. Translations can work either way: from English to these
supported languages, or from these languages to English.
To make an example: If you wanted to view my company's (HRD Press)
webpages in Italian (or any of the languages I've listed), just go to the
translator page (http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com ) and key our
complete home page address (http://www.hrdpress.com) into the box provided
and hit the translate button. Eccola! Our homepage comes up in Italian
(excluding the graphics). You must remeber to put in the http:// prefix or
the translator will assume that your entering a statement and try to
translate it accordingly.
The Altavista translator can also handle a limited amount of text, but I
feel its greatest application is in translating web sites.
Further caveats: It only can do one web page at a time, not an entire
site, and therefore is better used on actual documents found on a web site
(like our on-line catalog for an example). Also, like most software
translators it can be confused by idiomatic language and word order. Use
with caution.
Possible applications for international trainers:
One could read potential clients web pages more quickly and easily. One
could inform foreign clients of this service as a way they could view your
web site--if it is in English. One could put together viewable documents
on one's site in English which could then be translated--though I'd really
have to warn you again about the software limitations before doing this!
Obviously this little translation engine is best for informing folks of
relatively simple matters and for promotion of one's business, but one does
hope for a better version in future. I understand that there are
translation software packages for the PC out there. Perhaps someone would
be kind enough to give us some information on these?
Ciao,
Barry
Barry Davis
Acquisition@hrdpress.com
http://www.hrdpress.com