Foreign languages are closely woven into our daily lives. It is not easy for a person who does not know even the basics of English. Now Chinese is already gaining demand among the population, because the mother country is a very profitable business partner.
Progress in the field of various kinds of translators is steadily moving forward, leaving free use of various online resources to help those in need.
- Let’s start with the online-translator. It’s very easy to find with the help of any search engine (search engine resource). You can note several advantages of this service.
First, it is easy to use: it is enough to copy the text in the primary window, select languages and press the “translate” button.
Secondly, is provided, for the most part, free of charge.
Thirdly, there is an opportunity to find almost any language for translation, whether it’s Welsh, Hebrew or Japanese. Not to mention the fact that the translator allows the choice of specialization, which refers to the text: there and auto subjects, and medicine, and business and computers. And if you try, you can find unlimited translation – meaning that at a time you can translate any amount of text. But there is one major drawback – the quality. I did a little experiment by asking three different services to translate “I’m sure I will need the language” into English. The result showed incompetence in two of the three. The output was a set of words instead of a coherent sentence. - Communities of translators. There are many translation associations on the Internet. Their field of activity ranges from translating documents and songs to so-called “emergency” – when you urgently need to translate a tricky phrase. But beyond that, they have their own specialty. For example, in one community people create different terminology dictionaries (accounting, applied mathematics, biology, etc.). Another community organizes translators, alerts people to developments in the field, and informs everyone about the topic. Another one educates, offering workshops, recommendations, and even has its own collection of experience. This type of service (translation in the community) can guarantee good quality since the discussion is often conducted in the forum, and several professionals participate in it at once. But the only nuance is time, because in this case the result does not depend on you.
- Ordering a translation from a specialist (in the office) – a rather expensive pleasure, on average 250 rubles per page, at the same time will be carried out on 5-8 pages a day. This kind of service is intended for corporate companies which make annual deals by ordering all documents from the agency. But at least this promises a high level of quality.
- Dictionaries. Paper dictionary gives the opportunity to use it everywhere, offers a huge number of translation options and examples in conjunction with other words. But, in contrast, it can not provide a translation of the exact phrase you need and is much slower than an electronic dictionary. An electronic dictionary, on the other hand, is very convenient to use: speed and variability are its main advantages. There are two types of electronic dictionary: portable, handheld and easy-to-use, and online, which is connected with your computer or cell phone.
- Plug-ins for browsers. I think it is useful to decipher the meaning of this type of service. Plug-ins – these are functional add-ons for browsers, that is, the program that provides access to web resources. Translator is the same plug-in, the icon of which you can find on the toolbar or, if this add-on is not installed, download it yourself from the Internet. The service provided by Mozilla Firefox browser had the following advantages: wide choice of languages, built-in quality dictionary, spell checker, audio playback of words and whole phrases, free use.
- Toolbars. Toolbar is a very convenient kind of service that works on the basis of various browsers, such as Opera, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and others. The program is a toolbar, I want to note, very functional. For example, Google Toolbar gives the user a wide range of options for translating information. Firstly, it includes automatic translation of the word – you just need to put the mouse cursor over it. In the settings you can adjust the necessary parameters – for this click on the blue wrench (in Mozilla Firefox it is in the upper right corner of the panel). Secondly, supports translation of an entire web page: you need to click the “Translate” button on the toolbar.
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