Babel Fish Spanish TranslatorThe Babel Fish Spanish Translator was probably the most popular translator on the Internet before the likes of Google and Bing came along with their sets of free translation tools.It was essentially the first online translator to go somewhat mainstream, in that more and more people not only knew about it, but actually used it on a somewhat frequent basis. While it has certainly gone down in popularity over the years due mostly to the introduction of new and improved online translation experiences, it is still around providing translations, which is why I included it in this little experiment I ran. If you recall, I decided to run a test on a children's rhyme, specifically "I'm a Little Teapot." This consisted of two steps: the first was to run the original English version through the translation engine and get output in Spanish. The second (and more interesting) step included taking that newly translated Spanish text and do a back translation in the same translation engine back to English and see how close it got to the original. Fun stuff for a translator. Babel Fish Spanish Translator ResultsHere are the results of the experiment. I hope you enjoy them. I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up, hear me shout: tip me over and pour me out. ---Corresponding Spanish Text--- I'm una pequeños tetera, cortocircuito y cerveza de malto. Aquí está mi manija, aquí es mi canalón. Cuando consigo todos cocidos al vapor para arriba, óigame gritar: inclíneme encima y viértame hacia fuera. ---Translated back into English--- I'm small a teapot, short circuit and beer of malto. Here it is my handle, is my gutter here. When with himself all spanish stews to the steam for above, óigame to shout: inclíneme above and viértame towards outside. Notice anything interesting? The first line of the verse is what really got me; specifically the translation of the phrase "short and stout." The Babel Fish Spanish Translator translated this as "cortocircuito y cerveza de malto" which I would think are translations of the more obscure English meanings of the word. I wonder why the translator chose to focus on those meanings instead of the more common meanings referencing the size of objects. Now that you've seen the results, you might want to check out the same experiment I did with some of the other popular online translation tools out there.
About the Babel Fish Spanish TranslatorLike most other free Spanish translators on the web, the BabelFish Translator can translate either blocks of text or individual web pages (by writing in the corresponding URL). However, BabelFish limits your block of text to only 150 words (not very much at all). You can use a world keyboard to input accented or Cyrillic characters. Out of the free translation services I experimented with, the Babel Fish Spanish Translator offered the most combination of languages. English can be translated into the following languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, and Spanish. In addition, each of these languages can be translated to English. Other combinations are also possible, including: French to German, French to Greek, French to Italian, French to Portuguese, French to Dutch, and French to Spanish; German to French; Greek to French; Italian to French; Portuguese to French; and Spanish to French. Finally, AltaVista gives you the code to add the AltaVista Spanish Translator to your site for free, which can be a great way to provide to add value to your online content and increase the level of customer service to you online customers and clients. Return from the Babel Fish Spanish Translator back to Free Spanish Translation. |
