[comp.sys.mac.wanted] translator

n7obr@n7obr.UUCP (n7obr) (10/24/90)

Does anyone know of a program (commercial, shareware, public domain, etc.) out
there that will translate a document written using Microsoft Word 4.0 for the
Macintosh into Spanish?  My sisters school is in need of producing documents
in both English and Spanish and this could be cheaper than hiring a translator
whenever they needed the service.  If anyone out there knows of such a program
e-mail me at the below address.

Thank you,

Jim Bazemore

e-mail address  n7obr!n7obr!ws7m@hub.ucsb.edu

anderson@sapir.cog.jhu.edu (Stephen R. Anderson) (10/24/90)

In article <11@n7obr.UUCP> n7obr@n7obr.UUCP (n7obr) writes:

>   Does anyone know of a program (commercial, shareware, public 
>   domain, etc.) out there that will translate a document written 
>   using Microsoft Word 4.0 for the Macintosh into Spanish?  
>   My sisters school is in need of producing documents in both 
>   English and Spanish and this could be cheaper than hiring a 
>   translator whenever they needed the service.  If anyone out 
>   there knows of such a program e-mail me at the below address.

Since no one has yet managed to provide reliable and reasonably
idiomatic translation of general text from one natural language to
another even with a network of Cray Y-MP's and a Connection Machine or
two thrown in, I doubt that your sister's school will be able to
accomplish this on their mac in the immediate future. Furthermore,
given the big $ that public and private research agencies have sunk
into this project over the past 40 years or so, it is quite unlikely
that any such system would wind up being retailed at Macintosh market
prices.

I suggest the school bite the bullet and hire a human translator. On
the other hand, if someone DOES tell you about such a system, I'd like
to know about it too.....

Stephen R. Anderson
Dept. of Cognitive Science
The Johns Hopkins University

<anderson@sapir.cog.jhu.edu>