People have asked how I manage to translate items of news from Spanish to English. Some of you may mistakenly think that my Spanish has progressed so well that I work it out myself. I don't think so!
Although I do try to work out as much as I can, there are a few tools that help me.
First off; I'm running Windows Vista which has the Sidebar sitting to the right of my desktop. One of the gadgets running in my sidebar is Systran translator which is a free download. When I get stuck with a word or phrase I simply type it into the box and click Translate. Instantly I get a translation in a pop up box.
Sometimes though a word may have more than one meaning. In those cases a simple translation may not be correct. For those words, I use an online dictionary where I can type in a word and get various definitions. For verbs, the dictionary also provides the relevant conjugations (past, present and future).
In cases where the word is not included in the dictionary, there is the option to consult a monolingual dictionary and if that fails the RAE (REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA) - the definitive reference source for the Spanish language.
Often though, I want to translate a whole document or a web page. For that I use the Systrans Home Translator program installed on my computer. It isn't cheap - the latest version (V6) has just cost me £68 to download - well worth it though for the regular translations I undertake.
Of course, like with any translation program, I have to untangle the grammar and with the odd word find an alternative definition. Still it is a lot easier than sitting with a dictionary looking each word up only to find that it doesn't make sense.
Hopefully, in time, I'll use it less and less and not have to buy V7!
No comments:
Post a Comment