[comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc] English to German Translator Wanted

robert@laxsqnt.UUCP (Robert A. Ertel) (03/22/91)

I am looking for an IBM pc package that will convert English to German,
does such a beast exist?  If so is it Free?  If so where can I get it?
Please E-Mail responses.

Thanks.
...........................................................................

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TONY@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Tony Roder) (03/23/91)

In article <11635@laxsqnt.UUCP>, robert@laxsqnt.UUCP (Robert A. Ertel) says:
>
>I am looking for an IBM pc package that will convert English to German,
>does such a beast exist?  If so is it Free?  If so where can I get it?

Yes, it does: it's called a translator, who generally are nice people
(although I expect some of them might be beastly).  They are professionals,
and as such are not free; they earn a living as we all do.  And you can
get one by contacting a reputable translation agency, of if you prefer,
get in touch with me and I will refer you to some.

As to the machine translation which you had in mind, please consider the
English language (never mind foreign ones) and wonder how you would
program your computer to understand it.  Then, think about having it
understand another language, etc. etc. etc.


   Tony Roder, speaking his mind .....

lodzins@pilot.njin.net (Dean Lodzinski) (03/23/91)

There is such a program out, but unfortunately I forget the name.  I
have seen the program advertised in PC Computing and in the Selective
Software catalog.  The list price is $79.  There is also versions that
do English to Spanish, French and Italian.

From your message, it sounds as if you doubt it could be done and the
persons' question was stupid.  I surely hope that isn't the case.

    Dean
-- 

============================================================================
Dean Lodzinski         dean_l@turbo.kean.edu, lodzins@pilot.njin.net,
47 Mercury Circle      dean_l@support.kean.edu or D.LODZINSKI on GEnie
South Amboy, NJ        Dean Lodzinski on Hologram Inc., FNET Node 133, 
08879-2464  USA          at 908/727-1914 (1200/2400/9600)
                       Dean Lodzinski on Fidonet at 1:107/371 or 1:107/323

spcoltri@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Steve Coltrin) (03/23/91)

lodzins@pilot.njin.net (Dean Lodzinski) writes:

>There is such a program out, but unfortunately I forget the name.  I
>have seen the program advertised in PC Computing and in the Selective
>Software catalog.  The list price is $79.  There is also versions that
>do English to Spanish, French and Italian.

	I would expect this to be a computerized E/G dictionary.  The present
state-of-the-art machine English/German translator can only handle text
containing very simple grammatical structures and a narrow vocabulary
(scientific terms and little else).

>From your message, it sounds as if you doubt it could be done and the
>persons' question was stupid.  I surely hope that isn't the case.

	Of course it _can_ be done - if a brain can do it a machine can - but
we haven't made it work very well at all yet.

>    Dean
>-- 

>============================================================================
>Dean Lodzinski         dean_l@turbo.kean.edu, lodzins@pilot.njin.net,
>47 Mercury Circle      dean_l@support.kean.edu or D.LODZINSKI on GEnie
>South Amboy, NJ        Dean Lodzinski on Hologram Inc., FNET Node 133, 
>08879-2464  USA          at 908/727-1914 (1200/2400/9600)
>                       Dean Lodzinski on Fidonet at 1:107/371 or 1:107/323

-- 
spcoltri@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (129.15.22.2)
"We're not a hundred percent sure.  The interpreter went with them."

marwk@levels.sait.edu.au (03/23/91)

> lodzins@pilot.njin.net (Dean Lodzinski) writes:
>
>>There is such a program out, but unfortunately I forget the name.  I
>>have seen the program advertised in PC Computing and in the Selective
>>Software catalog.  The list price is $79.  There is also versions that
>>do English to Spanish, French and Italian.
>

I tried emailing the originator of this request but it bounced back.

I would be happy to translate English into German, at a cost.
Ich wu..rde ganz glu..cklich sein, wenn Ich Ihnen zu helfen koennen.
Es wurde nicht billig kosten, auch wurde es nicht teuer kosten.

Actually, my father would do it and I would help him with some of the
technical stuff.  What is it: computing, mathematics, poetry?

Ray
--
University of South Australia   | Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
P.O. Box 1                      | Ghing thien me how, ming thien gung me how.
Ingle Farm                      | Knobs, knobs everywhere,
South Australia                 |              just vary a knob to think!

pburke@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Peter Burke, MIC, 263-7744) (03/24/91)

In article <Mar.22.15.48.41.1991.21668@pilot.njin.net>, lodzins@pilot.njin.net (Dean Lodzinski) writes...

>There is such a program out, but unfortunately I forget the name.  I
>have seen the program advertised in PC Computing and in the Selective
>Software catalog.  The list price is $79.  There is also versions that
>do English to Spanish, French and Italian.
> 
>From your message, it sounds as if you doubt it could be done and the
>persons' question was stupid.  I surely hope that isn't the case.
> 

I think the program you saw advertised is the one we recently received 
an evaluation copy off ("German Assistant", but I am not sure of the 
name myself). Well, according to my judgment (I am a native speaker of 
German and did some professional translating a few years ago), it does a 
pathetic job. It is not only poor in terms of the vocabulary it can 
handle, it also can't cope with grammatical complexities that exceed a 
sentece consisting of more than 5 words. The most problematic aspect is 
that it still provides you with a translation, even if it just guessed 
most of the terms. You can edit the questionable ones, but if you don't 
have a clear understanding of the meaning of the entire sentence anyway, 
you will probably never come up with a proper translation. I think this 
program is not safe enough to be relied upon, which raises the question 
who could actually benefit from it? I think it is just one more gimmick 
aimed at people who think learning a foreign language can be done by 
buying a bunch of cassette tapes and a translating program. 
If it is possible at all to create a decent program? Probably, but the 
amount of work and the number of possible definitions (figures of 
speech...) this program would have to be able to figure out (which boils 
down to "understanding" the meaning of an entire sentence/paragraph) is 
so tremendously large, that it hardly could be marketed for $79 at its 
introduction.

Peter

pburke@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Peter Burke, MIC, 263-7744) (03/24/91)

In article <16044.27ebcaa7@levels.sait.edu.au>, marwk@levels.sait.edu.au writes...

>> lodzins@pilot.njin.net (Dean Lodzinski) writes:
>>
>>>There is such a program out, but unfortunately I forget the name.  I
>>>have seen the program advertised in PC Computing and in the Selective
>>>Software catalog.  The list price is $79.  There is also versions that
>>>do English to Spanish, French and Italian.
>>
> > 
>I would be happy to translate English into German, at a cost.
>Ich wu..rde ganz glu..cklich sein, wenn Ich Ihnen zu helfen koennen.
>Es wurde nicht billig kosten, auch wurde es nicht teuer kosten.
> 
>Actually, my father would do it and I would help him with some of the
>technical stuff.  What is it: computing, mathematics, poetry?
> 
>Ray

I hope your father's German is better than yours!

gcoen@ut-emx.uucp (Gary A. Coen) (03/25/91)

In article <1991Mar23.060046.22639@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu> spcoltri@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Steve Coltrin) writes (in response to a request for PC-based machine
translation software):

>lodzins@pilot.njin.net (Dean Lodzinski) writes:
>>There is such a program out, but unfortunately I forget the name.  I
>>have seen the program advertised in PC Computing and in the Selective
>>Software catalog.  The list price is $79.  There is also versions that
>>do English to Spanish, French and Italian.
>
>	I would expect this to be a computerized E/G dictionary.  The present
>state-of-the-art machine English/German translator can only handle text
>containing very simple grammatical structures and a narrow vocabulary
>(scientific terms and little else).

I have no doubt that Steve Coltrin is very close to being perfectly correct
in his response, and I will add just a bit more information.  If you carefully
read the promotional blurbs associated with the Translator's Assistant soft-
ware (and the promo stuff associated with similar products) you will not see
any bold claims about translation of natural language texts. Instead, you will 
encounter phrases like "your key to translation," "your translator's assist-
ant," etc.  Based purely on an evaluation of the output of such systems, the 
technology is nearly indistinguishable from the type of system reported in 
A.G. Oettinger's 1954 dissertation at Harvard--maybe with a little added
sophistication, but not much surpassing the state-of-the-art as of the 1966
ALPAC apocalypse. However, the current state-of-the-art is much more sophis-
ticated than it was during that period. But for $79 you get software like that
described above; for state-of-the-art English to German MT, you'll need to
invest heavily in order to finance it, and it won't run on a PC. Not yet.

SAPT99@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK (03/27/91)

There  are a couple of packages in the market,that's true. Sorry,now I remember
only one name. 'Globalink'. It's available in lots of 'pairs'.
Surely in English-to-German. But it's damned expensive.
  I'd rather take it easy,too, because this programs *are very limited* and
they are rather just tools to help the translators' work.

Nick