Thunderstone - EPI wrote:
I appreciated the pointer to Alta Vista's translation service, and tried
it on our web site. We have an international organization, with some
pages on our site in French, Spanish, Dutch & German, as well as
affiliated organizations with German-language sites. The verdict:
It was fast & easy to get my web pages turned into other languages, with
layout preserved.
When I converted German & Spanish pages already on our site back to
English, it was easy to see that the computer has a lot to learn. Quite
amusing, actually. Also, though my French is so rudimentary as to be
almost nonexistent, I could tell by looking that the English-to-French
translation of my web site was laughable.
Verdict: I think this software is VERY useful to give users the ability
to obtain a translation of a web site. When I converted German to
English, it is true that the grammar and syntax were a joke, but it
turned a web site from being totally incomprehensible into something I
could decipher and gain information from. But DON'T use this sort of
software to try to construct a foreign language page - unless you have
someone fluent in that language available to proofread. Users will
probably forgive the computer, but laugh at us webmasters if we try to
permanently preserve these translations as a "hard" page.
--
Abigail Marshall
Information Services Director
Davis Dyslexia Association International
Our Web Site:
http://www.dyslexia.com
