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FreeTranslation.Com
Some
Caveats
This free
site is not intended as the magic bullet that will make all linguistic
obstacles disappear. As the site itself says, it's good for getting the
gist of something, but there will be many opportunities for the software
to fail. For example, here's a passage from a Triton Project WebQuest
(Rainforests:
When Does Use Become Exploitation? by Claudja Van Orden and Rosary
Hernandez):
| You
are an investigative reporter and you work for a newspaper that support
many environmental causes. Your assignment will be to collect information
that will be used to persuade "non-believers" (people who do not see
that we must treat our environment in a better way) You are about
to enter a fabulous world of exotic plants and animals, where bugs
are bigger than your hand and the air is filled with the sounds of
brightly colored birds, swinging monkeys and active wildlife. Nine
feet of rain fall every year in the rainforest so the sky above you
is almost completely blocked out by a canopy of thousands of trees,
brilliantly colored flowers and lush, leafy plants. This adventure
into the rainforest will take you into the heart of the deepest jungle.
It will give you the chance to discover the countries where these
fabulous rainforests are located and the people who live there and
depend on them for survival. |
Translating
this passage into Spanish results in:
| Usted
es un periodista de investigative y usted trabaja para un peri—dico
que sostiene muchas causas de entorno. Su tarea estará a reunir
información que se está acostumbrado a persuade "no
creyentes" (gente que no ve que debemos tratar nuestro ambiente en
una mejor manera) Usted está en vísperas de entra un
mundo fabuloso de plantas y animales exóticos, donde bichos
son más grandes que la mano y el aire se llenan con los sonidos
de coloró brillantemente pájaros, monos que columpian
y fauna activa. Nueve pies de la caída de la lluvia cada año
en el rainforest tan el cielo encima de usted casi es bosquejado completamente
por un canopy de miles de árboles, coloró brillantemente
flores y plantas exuberantes y frondosas. Esta aventura en el rainforest
desarmará en el corazón de la selva más profunda.
Le dará la oportunidad a descubre los países donde estos
rainforests fabuloso se localizan y la gente que vive allí
y los depende de para sobrevivencia. |
And taking
this passage and translating it back to English results in:
| You
are a journalist of investigative and you work for a newspaper that
maintains many causes of entorno. Its task will be to gather information
that is usual to persuade "not believing" (people that does not see
that should treat our environment in a better way) You are in eves
of enters a fabulous world of plants and animal exotic, where bugs
are larger than the hand and the air they are filled with the sounds
of colored brilliantly birds, monos that they swing and active fauna.
Nine feet of the fall of the rain each year in the rainforest so the
heaven over you almost are bosquejado completely by a canopy of thousands
of trees, colored brilliantly flowers and leafy and exuberant plants.
This adventure in the rainforest will disarm in the heart of the deepest
forest. It will give the opportunity to discovers the countries where
these rainforests fabulous they are located and the people that lives
there and depends them on for sobrevivencia. |
It's not
bad, but it wouldn't get an A in English class. Of course, doing the translation
twice compounds the errors that creep in, but you can see that FreeTranslation
sometimes makes mistakes based on idiomatic expressions, and if a word
is missing from its vocabulary it leaves it untranslated. Still, this
can be a useful site for making things more accessible for English Language
Learners, and for bringing into your classroom the quickly growing number
of sites out there that are written in Spanish, Portuguese, French, German,
Italian and (!) Norwegian.
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