Do you teach Spanish speakers? French, Italian, Portuguese, or German language students? Or maybe a language class? Have you found a page in one language that you would just be perfect in another? Well there are two methods that allow you translate web pages.

Method 1

1. Find a very giving bilingual or multilingual person (yourself???) to spend hours translating the web pages.

Method 2

When using Altavista have you ever noticed the translate link at the end of the description? Look at the image taken from an Altavista Search.

Altavista has a neat feature that will roughly translate any document to or from English, to or from Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, or German. I say rough. It is not an exact science, but considering the alternative it is a great resource and its FREE.

Please Note: Unfortunately, the Altavista translator does not let you save or bookmark the translated documents. You have a few options if you plan to utilize this page:

• Teach the students how to translate pages (which is quite simple - see below).
• You can print out the pages or show them on an overhead.
• You can Select All (command A) and Copy (command C), then open up your favorite word processor and Paste (command V). However, with this method you lose all formatting and graphics.

A Quick Tutorial

1. You can use the translate link (shown above) or to translate a web page of your choice, go to the Altavista Translations Page.
2. This page will have a dialogue box that you can type in any URL to be translated. You can also type any text to be translated - not just a URL.
3. Now you can pick what language to translate to and from. Click and hold the Translate from pop up menu. Select the translation you want and release the mouse.
4. Now hit the translate button. A translated replica in the new language will show up in a moment complete with the original formatting and graphics. Remember that you cannot save or bookmark this page. You could now get that translator from Method 1 to fix up some of the errors.

An Example

For those who are skeptical and read one of the languages listed can see how accurate the translation is by looking at this page translated by Altavista.

1. Copy (command C) the following address: http://edtech.sandi.net/triton/events/tpss98/translating.htm
   
   
2. Go to the Altavista Translations Page.
   
   
3. Paste (command V) the address into the dialogue box.
   
   
4. Select English to a language of your choice.
   
   
5. Hit Translate.