Dang Dang Posted June 3, 2006 at 04:28 AM Report Share Posted June 3, 2006 at 04:28 AM I have been searching high and low for a good peice of translation/dictionary software. I have tried all of the free ones I could find online but I want something that feels profesional and really does a good job of making translation run more smoothly. I came across one called TransWhiz and wanted to find out if any of you have used or know anything about it. Thanks for your help, Dang Dang Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trevelyan Posted June 4, 2006 at 06:35 PM Report Share Posted June 4, 2006 at 06:35 PM The biggest difference between professional and "free" translation systems is that free systems show you proof of translation quality before purchase. There are reasons that Transwhiz doesn't put up a live demonstration of its translation software. All of their examples are rigged. IMHO, if you want to blow a lot of money on translation software, one of the best commercial Chinese-English translation software tools is available from IBM, and is marketed as part of their websphere translation package. Systran is also good. Both are quite expensive though, and unless you are translating Dick and Jane you will need to train their systems extensively.Plecodict and Wenlin offer interfaces to the ABC dictionary, which is probably the most reliable electronic reference text available if you want a dictionary. Assuming you can actually read Chinese you're probably best off finding an open source tool you can work with and helping to improve its vocabulary. I may be biased here -- but it isn't rocket science to ask these companies for demonstrations of superior translation quality for coughing up hundreds of dollars for their systems. And dictionaries simply don't have the kinds of terms you need to check for contemporary translations. Put another way, don't assume that free systems are worse than commercial ones simply because they are more transparent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dang Dang Posted June 5, 2006 at 04:48 AM Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2006 at 04:48 AM Thanks for the input! Have you ever used Systrans Translation Software? If so, what is it like (in as much detail as you are willing to give me)? What is the IBM software called and what is it like? I have tried Wenlin but was not impressed with the interface when it came to text editing. But as far as a software dictionary, Wenlin is awesome! What free translation software has worked best for you? I really liked DimSum but it is still really buggy and takes a long time to load. I also have to admit I am not quite sure what I really want when it comes to the ideal translation software. I like the fact that Dimsum does give you good mouse over translation. I guess when I think about it my ideal would be: 1. A split screen with the original document on the left and the translation on the right 2. Mouse over translation (like DimSum) 3. Great single click dictionary (like Wenlin) 4. Good text editting (like Word or even Adobe Publisher) 5. Built in OCR functions 6. Easy switching and converting between traditional and simplified characters 7. And last of all FAST! 8. Oh, and maybe even spell check That may be alot to ask but with all those great minds out there, someone should be able to make this! Any advice on free translation software or even expensive software would be great! Thank you for your help. Dang Dang Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trevelyan Posted June 6, 2006 at 05:54 AM Report Share Posted June 6, 2006 at 05:54 AM Systran and IBM both have online demos of their stuff. That being said there is a huge difference between machine translation and reference tools and its not clear exactly what you want. Put another way, I don't think any software package does everything you want. Wenlin is the best commercial reference tool because it gives you access to the ABC dictionary -- Tom Bishop has also put a lot of work into developing a nice character dictionary. As far as the open source stuff goes, I'm the lead developer of the Adso project so am pretty biased. You can experiment with the engine online at: http://www.adsotrans.com The ZDT project comes with a version of the dictionary and is available for download from Sourceforge. You may find it useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hero Doug Posted June 25, 2006 at 12:21 PM Report Share Posted June 25, 2006 at 12:21 PM trevelyan, your site does exactly what I've been looking for, however the online version it limited to shorter sentences. Are you planning anything that can run on the desktop and support articles? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trevelyan Posted June 25, 2006 at 10:05 PM Report Share Posted June 25, 2006 at 10:05 PM Thanks for the positive feedback. Input limitations are actually browser-dependent. So if you can't fit the stuff in the box on the site you can either try switching browsers, or -- assuming you need to translate stuff that is online in some form -- either (1) feed the URL into the box on the advanced page (the software will recognize that this is a remote resource, and process it accordingly), or (2) try our Firefox plugin. If you open the plugin file in notepad you can edit the lines controlling much text is selected and sent to the engine by default. So you could can get the system to automate the analysis/translation of entire paragraphs rather than sentences if that is more convenient. Would love to have a desktop version available, but don't have the time or resources to put something together myself right now. Perhaps in the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoojason Posted March 30, 2007 at 08:44 AM Report Share Posted March 30, 2007 at 08:44 AM Dang Dang, have you locate the following Website.. they offer free Trial download. http://www.twobest.com/Pro_demo_en.html My version are at least 10 yrs old and can only operate in Window 95 & 98. The old version I have was full with security feature, you need to imput certain password refering to the pages of the maunal to get the correct key before you could use it. It will be the first time you need to perform this password entering... after that you could use as usual. It comes with full pages translation. Same as you I am looking for powerful translation software. I have use Systran version 4.0 Professional Yr 2003 for translation... but the result was disappointing. It couldn't compete to my older version of Oriental Express:wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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