Friday 16 August 2013

Top 5 Best Online Language Translation Tools



Top 5 Best Online Language Translation Tools
Many people are not fond of using machine translators and some even view them as completely useless items that aim at avoiding the cost of hiring quality human translation. There are even those who argue that online language translation tools have taken away employment opportunities previously reserved for real translators. While the tools can be regarded as intuition less, insensitive and impersonal, the truth is that people use them on a daily basis. 


These has led to the cropping up of numerous translation tools on the internet and while some offer their translation services free of charge, some of them are paid tools. While any of the tools will obviously give some results when used for translation purposes, their effectiveness tend to vary a lot and it is essential that you are able to spot the best tools that can assure you the best results possible. It is in this regard that this compilation tries to highlight some of the best online language translation tools to make it easy for users to select the most effective one. 


Google translate
Offered by Google Inc, there is no doubt that Google translate is regarded as the best online language translation tool by most people. It mainly functions as a translator for WebPages and texts and delivers results in the language desired by the searcher. People hold a positive opinion for this tool thanks to its ability of supporting a large set of good and useful languages. In addition, other users are always inclined of adding possible translations for technical terms thereby making the tool extremely useful. And unlike other online translation services like Yahoo and Babel Fish that are powered by SYSTRAN, Google translate is actually based on its own software. While the translations might not be perfect, they are generally good and useful.

Yahoo Babel Fish
The relatively well known Yahoo Babel Fish translator is based on Systran software. This tool is quite effective especially when used to translate short web pages and texts. Users of Babel Fish can also include a special translation box at the web pages which allows them to view the translated results in several desired languages. Translation languages supported by this tool include Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian, French and German. The only set back with the Yahoo Babel Fish is that it uses Systran which is of poor quality and highly prone to giving poor inaccurate translations.


SDL Free translation
Professional translators often use SDL which explains why it is very popular and one of the best online language translation tools. It is also capable of handling huge projects unlike other tools that are limited to handling just short translations. Using this service is quite interesting and after copy pasting the text to be translated, there is the option of selecting either the human translation or free machine translation. The choice you make will obviously depend on the accuracy of translations that you are seeking for.


WorldLingo
 
WorldLingo is basically a free online translation tool which is used for translations of several sections of text or even complete WebPages. According to recent statistics, the accuracy of this tool was rated to fall between 70 and 75 percent and thus making it highly reliable. At the least, WorldLingo assures an accuracy of 60 percent that is well above the acceptable average. It also supports a range of languages including English, Traditional and simplified Chinese, French, Dutch, Italian, Greek, Korean, Japanese, Spanish and Russian and a few more languages. It also offers an option of selecting the field of your document such as General, Technical and Legal for more focused results.


Bing translator
 
 Most people who have interacted with Bing translator rate it as the best after Google translator. This program is generally good but should obviously not be trusted for professional translations. Since the Bing translator lags quite a lot when it comes to updating its algorithms, you can expect strange translations at times when using this tool.  Nevertheless, Bing translator is capable of recognizing languages automatically and it were not for the awkward translations it delivers from time to time, there is no doubt that it features on the list of 5 best online language translation tools.

1 comment: