Is Google Translator good enough?

General Forums Off-topic Chat
1

Hey guys,

I’m looking to create a French and Spanish version of my website, CGShark.com. Would using Google Translator work well for that? I know a couple years ago it worked but not necessarily worked well. I just want to make sure I keep a professional image with the site and not have translation issues. :slight_smile:

2

Google translate is usually good enough if you need to translate a text so that you can understand it, but under no circumstances should you use anything like that for translating your website.

3

Alright that’s good to know :slight_smile: thanks.

4

rather than remaking your site you can put up some links that will look like little flags that when people click on them will automatically googletranslate the page into the languageof the flag they click on. one advantage of that is there are many people who are bilingual and google gives the option to suggest a better translation so those fluent in the languages can correct and mistakes google translate makes. plus then you only have to maintain one version to have all the versions. and not need server space for every language.

http://www.donutey.com/translation.php

if you dont want the flag or have php you can use googles way. http://translate.google.com/translate_tools that way translates into about 50 languages vis a dropdown menue.

5

That’s a really cool idea, thanks rdo3. I’ll definitely look into it. :slight_smile:

What do you recommend as far as downloadable tutorials go?

6

tutorials for what? google translate or blender? for google translate you just copy and past the code into your web page.

for blender if you just want more tutorials for your site i would recommend the ones from http://gryllus.net/Blender/3D.html because of his very simple and open license. “Copyright Notice
All material on this site may be freely distributed without restriction” that way you aren’t going to be accused of stealing from anyone or threatened to get sued. the main page looks very plain but once you open those little bars there is alot of stuff in the site. and the content will probably double until it’s as massive as his 2.4X site was. the 2.49 version was the officiak tufts university course.

7

Sorry I should have clarified - what do you recommend as far as translating tutorials goes? I could set it up so they’re viewable on the website as well I guess.

8

How do I enable the Web Element on my page?

Visit the Element setup wizard and follow these simple steps:

  • Select the language in the language drop-down that your web page is written in.
  • Select the languages you would like to make your web page instantly available in. You can pick all languages, or select individual languages by selecting the “Specific languages” radio button, then checking the languages you’d like to automatically translate your web page into.
  • Copy and paste this snippet of code into the BODY section of web pages that you would like to make instantly available in other languages.
    that would probably be the simplest if you are wanting to tell others how to imbed translating into their site.
9

Thanks for all the help rdo3 :slight_smile: I think the donutey.com approach will fit rather well with the style of the website. I’ll let ya know how it turns out. :wink:

10

As a linguist myself who has studied French and German I have to say I would warn you away from Google translate in any situation. As Morio said, it is useful to translate a text to a level where you can (50% of the time) gain some form of understanding, but if you want any kind of grammatically accurate translation, an automated translation like that just isn’t appropriate! To be honest, I wouldn’t recommend any kind of computer programme to set up the French/Spanish version of your sites as there will undoubtedly be errors which could look unprofessional. Have you thought about simply getting trained translators to do it? Or if you have a decent grasp of the languages you could always do sections? I would recommend the Collins Dictionary CD rom…so much better having it on your computer rather than flicking through the numerous pages of a huge book! Available in lots of online shops I do believe. Good luck!

11

If you want to do your own translations and are looking for words, wikipedia is nice (just switch languages) otherwise http://www.interglot.com/ and http://mymemory.translated.net/ can help you find that one word you need.

Unfortunatly anything with technical jargon is still relegated to (pricey) software or (stuffy) books.
http://www.omegat.org/ is my current weapon of choice for text translation, haven’t had the occasion to try out website translation much yet.

I know this might be “out of topic” but it might be usefull.

Oh and as James said: machine translation gets you 50 to 80% correct translation so far, but http://www.engrish.com/ has good examples of why it’s a bad idea to trust those pesky machines.

12

Thanks for the advice. I ended up with some really bad formatting issues with the google translated pages, so I may just wait until I find someone who can help me translate the pages properly. It’s no rush, so I’m not too worried about it.