Translation Gadgets and Software

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Translation Gadgets

Ectaco - electronic handheld translation equipment and software.
Do the translation yourself with the help of this gadget - the specs are very impressive, and earned it the prestigious Innovation Award from PCWorld Magazine. Their size and weight make them perfect for travellers. Editor's Pick!
New: Ectaco contacted me and suggested I put their catalogue on my site, and, better yet, said that the prices would be reduced from the RRP for all my site visitors! Click here for more details.

Free Online Translations - translate text and web pages.
A large variety of options and language are available. Click here for more details.

The key to choosing the right software is thinking ahead. It would be a waste of time and money to buy a product that will need to be replaced in a couple of months.

Spend a couple of minutes thinking of all the possible uses that you may have for translation software in the near future. The two most important points to consider are:

What language combinations will be required?

What will the software be required to do?

The answer to the second of those questions may seem obvious, but it is not. Software packages are each tailored to a particular type of person with a particular need. The main split is between people who are going to do the translation themselves, and those who will rely completely on the software. Working with different word processor and DTP file formats is another common difference between packages.

Software Limitations

Software can only translate text that is already on your computer. If you want to translate text that is on paper, you will either have to type it first, or scan it and use OCR (optical character recognition).

The results produced by any machine translation software will not be high quality. It will be enough for someone to know roughly what was written in the original, but some words will be wrong and the grammar will be far from perfect. This is often all that is required, but for higher quality translations, you will need to hire a professional.

Software Reviews

Please realise that new packages are released all the time, and I can not test them all myself. I rely on the comments of people like you who share their experiences of the software with me. When you have bought your software, please tell me what you think of it.

"Translation Memory" Software Designed for professional translators. This software helps to manage large translation jobs. It can recognise phases that you have translated before, and shows you how they were translated last time. This can improve your consistency and speed. Translation Manager v2.0 - IBM's world leading translation product. Many languages and quite a few document types are supported. It comes complete with a good set of gadgets, unlike similar products that require "add-ons" to be bought at extra cost. It is fast, flexible and effective. Deja Vu - Another fully featured package. Like IBM's Translation Manager, this product comes with all the gadgets. The main advantage of Deja Vu is the excellent customer support that is provided free of charge. There are also some good discussion groups about the product. Similar Products: Transit, Translator's Workbench, and SDLX all work well.

"Machine Translation" Software Translates text from one language to another. More advanced than simply translating word-for-word, the good packages take context and grammar into consideration. Very useful software to have. SYSTRAN Systran software offers one of the best quality translations. You have to copy and paste into the "Personal" version, but the "Professional Standard" package is much more flexible. With the Pro version, you can translate documents and HTML files while maintaining their original layout. Another useful feature of the Pro version is the user definable dictionary of words and expressions that can be used to override the default meanings. People who do a lot of translations will know just how useful that is! Attractive prices, good quality translations and the SYSTRAN name are what make this a popular product. Want to translate your personal text documents in 6 languages? Try SYSTRAN Personal! Need an automatic translator for your business? Try SYSTRAN Professional Standard! Need to translate Web pages, html documents? Try SYSTRANET for the Web! Also available in the UK. Ectaco Their huge range make Ectaco the company to try for the harder to find languages and operating systems. Travellers often choose Ectaco software because it can be used on their palm and pocket computers. Their packages are translation dictionaries and language teachers rather than machine translation, but they are powerful enough to be useful. Ectaco suggested I put their catalogue on my site. That way, Translation-Guide.com visitors can buy software at prices reduced from the RRP. Click here to see what is available. Easy Translator 3 Usually described as either average or below average. Poor translation quality is the most common complaint. No obvious advantages of this software over other products. Also available in the UK. Universal Translator Generally considered a waste of money. Universal Translator 2000 would be my choice if I had not heard so many bad things about it. The feature list and price are both very impressive, but the product itself is usually described as "disappointing". Poor quality translations are the main complaint of users, but not the only complaint. I have not found anyone who likes this software! Also available in the UK.

Note: Professional translators often claim an even higher productivity increase when they use voice recognition software. Let's face it - most people can talk faster than they type! For best results you need a fast computer with lots of memory, a good sound card and a fantastic microphone. Dragon NaturallySpeaking is most people's favourite voice recognition software. Try the US version or UK version.