|
Translator
The need to communicate in other languages
One of the many challenges you will face in international markets is dealing with the different languages you will encounter across the world. Fortunately, English is the 'lingua franca' of the export world, but nevertheless, you are likely to come across potential customers that simply do not speak English and somehow you may need communicate with them. Alternatively, you may receive a communication from an overseas customer written in German or Spanish or Chinese. You could ignore it, but with a bit of effort you can have the communication translated and a reply set up in the target language and you can be assured that potential customer will be very impressed with your seriousness to do business. Of course, you wouldn't take this effort just with every customer.
You would only do so with reputable firms, so the first thing you would do is check the website of the firm communicating with you - if it appears that they are a substantial concern, then perhaps it is worth taking the effort to translate the communication. If it is a small firm or they simply don't have a website, then perhaps you should think twice.
Online translation programs
Alta
Vista's BabelFish
One of the first online translations services; it remains
one of the premier online translation facilities and it covers
quite a range of languages. This is the place to start. The
facility is powered by Systran, which you can also purchase
and download from this site for use on your PC.
Translation Agency
Offer free website translation and free translation services
Free
Translation Online
A very nice, easy-to-use online translation program that
covers the main languages (English, Spanish, French, German,
Russian and Portuguese)! It is one of the better interfaces
around.
Foreign
Word
This site offers an online machine translation facility,
where you can enter the text you want translated and the
program translates the text into the language of your choice.
A nice, easy to use service - worth a try.
Dictionary.com
A simple, uncluttered online translation program. Not fancy,
but it covers quite a few languages, including Japanese,
Chinese. Korean, Dutch, Greek, Italian, etc. A good place
to start.
WorldLingo
e-mail translations
This is another e-mail translation service from WorldLingo,
except that it is free. With this service, you can create
an e-mail online and then send it to a specific person. When
you create the e-mail it is automatically translated and
the translated e-mail is sent to the recipient. This means
that the recipient has no choice and only receives the already
translated e-mail, which may not be ideal. Still it remains
a useful tool for the odd occasion that you need to translate
an e-mail for sending.
Interpret
Let's start with a home-based service. Using Interpret you can translate not only from English, but also from other local languages such as Afrikaans, Sotho and Xhosa. Target languages include French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Danish and Spanish. You can translate pieces of text, whole web sites and whole e-mails. Keep it up guys!
Freetranslation
This is specialised translation service that offers both online and human translation services. The online translation facility is free and easy to use. In addition, they offer a website translation service that enables you to enter a website created in another language and to have that translated into English. In addition, they offer professional human translation services at US$0.10 per word.
Promt
Promt is another online service that you can use to translate text, web pages and e-mails. It only covers seven languages though (English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Portuguese and Italian). There are also software products for sale. Registration is available - for free - to access more advanced features. Worth a try!
Word2Word
Word2Word's list of online translators - A nice collection of online translators out of the mainstream. If you're looking for a way-out language, this list may cover it.
TravLang
Like the name says, this service is aimed more at the traveller, but offers similar services to all the other online translators.
Online dictionaries
There may come a time when you need to look up just a single word or short phrase (in English or in any other language). For this, a dictionary is likely to suffice. What is more, the translators referred to above, only work for a limited number of major languages, but what about Hindi, Indonesian or Korea. Most of the languages in the world are covered by the dictionaries provided below. Browse through them to find the one best suited to your needs.
babLa
Multilingual dictionaries with pronunciation, conjugation and context sentences.
Yourdictionary.com
More than 280 dictionaries, supported by glossaries, language courses, and other features.
Wordreference.com
A simple service focusing on French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.
Dictionary.com
A useful dictionary with plenty of additional facilities.
Word2Word
201 languages listed!
Paderborn University
Maintains an odd list of dictionaries (try it if you can't find anything else).
Translation programs
Foreign
Word
In addition to offering an online machine translation service,
Foreign Word offers a freely downloadable software program
- Xanadu - that can translate your text into 70 languages
- sounds like a great tool.
World
Language
This is a site where you can purchase translation software.
If you are doing regular business with a particular country,
then this investment might be worth it. The site offers 359
translation products available in 33 languages.
Systran
This is the company that powers most of the other online
services. They offer a range of software products for use
in small businesses to large enterprises. Need the best software?
This is the site to visit.
International translators
BizEurope
Translators Guide
This page provides a list of translators' associations around
the world. If you are looking for a human translator somewhere
in the world, this is a good page on which to start your
search.
Translators
Base
Need to find a translator or translation services, try this
site. It maintains a worldwide database of translators (including
a few in South Africa).
Online
Language Translators
Need a source of translations into a wide range of foreign
language? Try this site - they claim to over human translations
into 70 different languages. Remember, this is a US company,
so the fees may be high.
Translation Agency
Offer translation services.
Editions du Jour
Editions du jour is an international company supplying the global market with professional language services including translation, interpreting, proofreading, editing, voice over and transcription for European and African languages.
Click2translate
A US-based service. Click to send them the file to be translated. They will send you a quote and if accepted, you pay, they translate and voila!
World Lingo
Another US-based service that provides translations in 141 languages - beat that if you can. They make use of translators around the world.
TranslationZone
Access a list of translators around the world according to subject, country or language.
Immigration-USA
Provides a list of human translators. May be worth a try?
Translation resources
Word2Word
This is a site that offers links to 201 language resources.
Some of these are online translation facilities, while others
simply contain a list of commonly used words. It remains
a good resource, however.
WorldLingo
Glossary
An excellent site for a glossary of terms that are used in
the world of online translation.
WorldLingo
Their services include free text, document, website and email translators, and they also offer professional services.
World
Language statistical facts
A great source of interesting language facts and figures.
Subject
dictionaries
Do you need to make use of specialised subject dictionaries?
Try this list. It covers a range of subject areas.
WorldLingo
e-mail translations
WorldLing offers a pay-for e-mail translation facility that
allows your readers to translate your e-mail into any one
of 12 different languages with a 75% accuracy; enough for
them to get the gist of the e-mail. When they receive your
e-mail they can select the language in which they would like
to read the e-mail by clicking on the language option that
accompanies the e-mail message. The e-mail is then automatically
translated into their language of choice. The advantage of
this system is that they receive the original e-mail written
in English and if their English is good enough, they can
read it without translating it. If, however, they do not
understand English, they can choose to have the e-mail translated,
but this remains their choice.
Language
automation
This site provides a large number of dictionaries; some online,
some just common words. In addition, there are also links
to technical dictionaries. Quite a comprehensive listing,
but it still requires quite a bit of browsing to get what
you want.
ESL
Desk
Another source of online dictionaries, translator programs,
glossaries and more. Can't help yourself elsewhere; give
this site a whorl.
Translation
Experts
This US-based company offers a range of products which include
computer translation software, as well as PDA translation
software. They also offer human translations if required.
Bultra
This site offers a range of 100 links to online translators
and machine translation programs. This is quite a good source
of translation links.
Eureka
Foreign Word offers a translation and language search engine.
Looking for something to do with translations or languages,
give this search engine a try.
Translating
Services Portal
This portal provides lists of sites that provide translating
services
Additional links
|
