Translator Tips & Tricks
Jun 14th, 2007 by Vladimir
- How to work with Online Translator?
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ImTranslator is split into three windows: original text, translation and back translation window. |
- What is Back translation?
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The back translation (if checked) automatically translates the target text back to the original language. |
- How to use Auto functions?
| The Auto functions if checked, automatically performs the following tasks: • Enables automatic Spell Checker. Auto Spell Checker detects spelling errors, and offers the option to change, ignore, or correct misspelled words • Enables Decoder that determines the text in Russian language and converts it, if needed, into the standard Cyrillic Windows encoding. Decoder can also be used to convert the Russian text into Latin characters (transliterate). Note: The Auto Decoder function is available for the Russian language only. • Opens Dictionary if a single word is entered for translation. |
- What are the limitations, if any, in the Free Trial? How does the limitation work?
| Text size per translation limited up to 1000 characters. All other features of the service are fully functional in the Free Trial account.Limitation is the break line that marks the end of the text size permitted for translation. For your convenience, the built-in counter calculates the number of input characters and warns you about the over-limit. The text below the limitation line remains unchanged. You can translate the remaining portion of the text in the next translation session by deleting the translated part. |
- How can I save my choice of translation languages?
| If you translate same languages all the time, it would be a good idea to save your choice of languages. This will greatly facilitate your work and save you time, so that you don’t have to scroll down the entire list of language pairs. For your convenience, the Settings > Options menu provides you the possibility to select the language pairs of your choice and save them for further use. By default, you account includes all available language pairs (see: Selected: list). You may remove unwanted pairs one by one by highlighting the language pair and clicking the red (minus) arrow. You may also do multiple deletions by holding the Ctrl key and selecting several language pairs at once. I you decide to add new pairs later on, you can do it from the From – To lists. Don’t forget to click the Save button to save your preferences. |
- Can I use Keyboard shortcut to translate?
| You can press TAB key followed by SPACE key instead of having to press the translation button. |
- Can I use Translation Software instead of a Human Translator?
| The answer depends upon the level of accuracy needed. Human translators cannot be completely replaced by Translation Software due to the complexity of language and the cultural differences. Translation software can help in reducing the time and costs involved in translating documents. It is designed to give you the gist of a document. The software can be used to generate a rough draft and then be trained by adding your own terms to dictionaries. This can increase the accuracy of the translation results dramatically. Moreover, the additional tools in the software can be used to identify one’s style of writing. |
- Why is the translated text identical to the source text? Why it is not translated?
| You may be trying to translate the text using incorrect language pair. For example, you translate German text, while the translation direction is set to “French-Russian” pair. In such a case, French translation engine won’t recognize your German text, and returns the source text as the translation. Always make sure that the direction is set according to the actual language used. Another reason for this error may be that your text has too many spelling errors. Misspelled words cannot be translated. |
- Why is translated text hard to understand or doesn’t make sense?
| Machine translation is not perfect. Since ImTranslator doesn’t translate word by word, but analyzes each sentence as a whole, a spelling mistake, an unknown word or too long and complicated sentence may distort the meaning of the entire sentence. For best results, check your spelling, write in complete sentences, and try to avoid shorthand words. |
- How to get better translation results?
| ImTranslator is a machine translation tool and cannot substitute human translation, although it may show some impressive results. However, using some simple tips, you can obtain better results. • Be sure to type all accents and other special characters required in the language you are typing, even on capital letters. • Check the spelling of your text to make sure that it is error free prior to translating. If a word is misspelled it may get translated incorrectly, or it may not be translated at all. • Strive for clarity and use simple, direct sentences with basic grammatical construction. • Avoid words that can have multiple meanings, and often do not have a direct equivalent in the target language. • Avoid abbreviations, acronyms and contractions unless they have been standardized in the target language. • Avoid long noun strings or modifier chains, as they may confuse what modifies what. • Avoid plays on words, puns, slang and idiomatic expressions. These include jargon specific to your product, company and industry. |
- Type all accents and special characters.
| Make sure to use our special characters tools to input the correct accented letters, alternatively you could use our Virtual Keyboard. Spanish language For example “sí” would be translated as “yes”, but “si” (without the accent) would be translated as “if”. French language “où” would be translated as “where”, but “ou” (without the accent) would be translated as “or”. “à la façon du pays” would be translated as “like the country“, but “a la façon du pays” would be translated as “the manner of the country has.“ German language “wurde” would be translated as “became”, but “würde” would be translated as “would become”. Using no accents or special characters would be generally considered as a mispelling. All rules-based translation engines work with correctly spelled texts. |
- Use correct punctuation.
| All rule-based translation software engines implement standard language punctuation rules. To get an accurate translation, follow these rules. 1. Use proper punctuation marks in the sentence Check the difference: English > French “how are you” – “comment sont vous” “how are you?” – “comment allez-vous?” Spanish > English “¿Me extrañas?”- “Do you miss me?” “Me extrañas”- “You miss me” 2. Use capital letters when required. Check the difference: Russian > English: “дорогой мартин” – “Road martin” “Дорогой Мартин”- “Dear Martin” Russian > French “дорогой мартин” – “Par le chemin martin” “Дорогой Мартин”- “Cher Martin |
- Use capitalization in German nouns.
| To get an accurate translation you must use the proper spelling. In the German orthography, nouns and most words with the syntactical function of nouns are capitalized, which is supposed to make it easier for readers to find out what function a word has within the sentence. Ignoring this rule will be considered as misspelling. Use the Spell button to check the spelling of the entered text. |
- Check the spelling.
| Check the spelling of your text to make sure that it is error free prior to translating. If a word is misspelled it may get translated incorrectly, or it may not be translated at all. 1. Use online Spell Checker to correct spelling errors. 2. Double check the text to make sure there are no typos, such as “form”or “from”. Such typos are not misspells and cannot be detected by the Spell Checker. As a result, the translation will be wrong. |
- Use Dictionary to translate single words.
| Machine translation technology implemented in our online translator is a full sentence translation and it’s based on the contextual analysis of a sentence. Any single word taken out of the context may have different meanings. The online translator strives to provide unambiguous translation. The alternative translations for multi-meaning words are not provided in the online version, but are provided in parenthesis in the desktop versions . To get an accurate translation, use words in simple phrases. If you do want to get the translation of a single words, you’ll have better luck using the dictionary tool. See examples: French language The word “pêche” has 2 meanings (peach and fishing). The Translator displays one meaning only. See different meanings in the context: “Je pêche avec mon père” – “I fish with my father” ” J’aime la pêche”- “I like the peach”. Russian language The Russian-English translator translates “том” as “volume”, which under most circumstances it does not mean. It is the prepositional form of “тот.” See different meanings in the context: “Всемирная история. Том 4.” – “World history. Volume 4.” “в том числе”- “including” |
- Can I check the accuracy of the translation by translating the document into another language and then back again?
| Translation software is not 100% accurate, so when you translate there will be some words not translated or some of the sentence structure can change one word. If you translated this same sentence back, the errors will be compounded. The probability of imprecise translation increases when translation is done from one language to another and back and forth. |