What's up with BABLEFISH???

[hjgauthier]

Someone recently mentioned a program called "Babelfish." This is a translator program that allows you to communicate online with people that speak different languages. I do business with people internationally and only speak English.
Have any of you used this product or some other translation software, how does it work, and how is that working for you?

Thanks,
Hubert

[chicgeek]

It's not a program, it's a site.

http://babelfish.altavista.com/

[hjgauthier]

thanks for the link. Have you ever used it and what is your experience?

Hubert

[my_misyel]

the translation sucks and it is translated per word not the entire phrases.it gives me headaches reading the translated articles/sentences. you should consult a translator.

[chicgeek]

If you're just using to help you comprehend something, it's great. Do not use it for publish translations, though.

[Julie]

What Laura said is true. It's good to get the basic idea of what someone is saying, but it's not 100% right on. In fact, I had Google Translate buttons on one of my site so it could be translated easily, and a few Chinese speaking people told me of its comical translations.

[Dan Williamson]

Never use translation sites professionally, the reason generally being that English is such a technical language that we have different words which can mean something somewhat stupid in Japanese or something.

[hjgauthier]

I appreciate all of you taking the time to reply. It is so nice to have a place and people so helpful.

What I am looking to use it for is an ongoing training for associates joining me in my business.
Would it be better, if using babelfish, to translate and then put into email, or to send email with a link to babelfish for some help, and that way if they need the help they can translate the email.

Thanks for your thoughts on this,
Hubert

[theawristocrat]

I only use it to translate sites/blogs but its not a stand alone program.

[waxingpoetic75]

What everyone says is true. We use this at my job all the time for a good laugh. We call it reverse translating. For example, take an excerpt or write up a short paragraph, and put in in the translate window. Choose any language, and hit translate. Then copy and paste the foreign phrases back in the translate window. Translate them back into English...that's what you have to decipher when you receive Babelfish translations.

[wolvie]

Yes it's an online translator and online translators are not that good you know. Sometimes the translations can turn out to be so funny.

[hjgauthier]

Thanks to all of you for your replys. I will be checking it out when I have a chance and see if it is something that is usable. I may have to get real creative and write very short simple sentences.

Hubert