There are many translation tools out there. There are those that you need to pay for, and those that are free. Of course if you just need to do brief checks on whether what you have translated is right or wrongly, you can use the free ones online, which I had previously mentioned in the blog on multi languages website translations/.

However recently I read on this news that “Babylon Translation Tool Does a So-So Job” by Erik Larkin, which makes me think that sometimes even machines that you have had to pay for, might not even do a better job than those that are free! So does this statement “best things in life are free” (sang by Madonna in “This used to be my playground”) apply in this case?

Ultimately, I personally still think nothing beats a human translator, as the brain is the most complex tool in the world. Ability to absorb information, process and then spit out in a different language is not something that a machine can replace, because very often, emotions are not included in the texts. That’s why we also need to “read between the lines” for a deeper understanding of texts. This understanding is not easily adapted by machines.

Still, the human brain is the best translation tool so far.

Dear folks,

Thank you for being supportive of our blog with you comments and readership. Without your comments, it would make us wonder whether anyone ever reads anything on this site at all!!

Back to translation, have you ever had the experience of stumbling upon a word and need a quick translation to be done?

There are a few websites that can do the trick, though not always accurate. But for the one or two word kind of translation, it should not be a problem.

• http://translate.google.com.sg/translate_t#
• http://babelfish.yahoo.com/
• http://www.stars21.com/
• http://www.freetranslation.com/
• http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_services/worldlingo_translator.html

My favourite these days is Google. It is pretty accurate, and there is a possibility of us giving suggestions to the translation if we feel it is not good enough. But if you were to translate sentences, then you will need to find someone who knows that language to proofread it. As it is a direct translation, the structure of the language is messy and the grammer may not be right.

You can have fun with these free online tools, and may even conjure up a letter to your friend in a foreign language. However, the other party may never know what you were trying to say at all!