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Subject:Re: translation and wiki docs From:David Neeley <dbneeley -at- gmail -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Wed, 09 Feb 2011 09:57:30 +0200
Sally Derrick asked:
> Have machine
> language plugins improved enough lately that I could review and accurately
> incorporate these comments? I admit it has been years since I've even
> thought about those but, at the time, a 10-foot pole was not long enough to
> make the experience palatable.;-)
>
> Sally
>
Sally,
Machine language translation quality has improved greatly in the past
few years. That said, much depends upon the input text--the "GIGO"
principle is very applicable here.
Over the past dozen years, I have sent and received some thousands of
letters using machine translation and have learned that if I use
relatively simple sentence construction and avoid most colloquialisms,
the output is usually quite understandable. Since many people are not
very skilled at that kind of writing, the results can vary substantially.
One caveat: in many technical areas, your translation engine must have a
translation dictionary that has the terms you use commonly in your
industry. One company that seems to have a fairly good selection of
software and specialized dictionaries is Promt: http://www.promt.com/
(When I say "thousands" of letters, I am not exaggerating. My wife is a
native Russian speaker, and prior to relocating full time to Ukraine in
2008 we were too much apart, and as a practical matter using machine
translation eliminated many potential misunderstandings as well as
creating a few.)
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