http://www.freetranslation.com
http://world.altavista.com
With the Web becoming more international every day, finding online translation help becomes more important.
There was a time (c. 1998) when instant Web translations were a joke. You would type in “I like pizza” and the the Spanish translation would be the equivalent of “The sky is green.” In the years since, translating simple declarative sentences from English into Spanish, French, German or Italian (and vice versa) has improved dramatically.
More useful than translating sentences are the sites that allow you to instantly translate entire Web pages. These translations are far from perfect, but they are just “gist” translations — providing an overall impression of what’s written on a page. Perfect if you want to see what’s making news in, say Spain. And the price is right — free.
The site I use most often is FreeTranslation.com (it’s also the easiest to remember). If I come across a site in a language it translates, I type in the URL and I know the gist of what’s being said.
Altavista’s translation site, world.altavista.com, is more sophisticated, offering additional translations from Korean and Japanese to English (but not vice versa).
If your are looking for Arabic-to-English translations, see my review of the Ajeeb service.
And here’s a fun site for now: The Dialectizer. Pretty much explains itself; my favorite: is “Elmer Fudd” [here’s my personal site in Elmer Fuddese].
