🚀 go-pugleaf

Gary Morrison:
> Do any of you have any positive or negative experience(s) with 
> Chinese/English translation programs for the Macintosh?  I'm asking 
> about something that can translate entire sentences.

> I ask because I've been chatting with a charming Chinese lady who seems 
> to find me interesting ;-) through some sort of translation program that 
> translates entire Email messages both directions.  It seems to do an 
> amazingly good job in fact.  We're toying with the idea of her coming 
> out here (US) to visit me, so it may be helpful to have such a 
> whole-sentence translation program available at a moment's notice.

> So, any suggestions?

Definitely have a suggestion. Find a new love interest.

> Thanks for the ideas!

I doubt you'll thank me for this one.

Davoud -- Lived in Asia for many years.

-- 
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com

In article <bhkBd.34979$wD4.18441@fe1.texas.rr.com>,
 Gary Morrison <mr88cet@texas.net> wrote:

> Do any of you have any positive or negative experience(s) with 
> Chinese/English translation programs for the Macintosh?  I'm asking 
> about something that can translate entire sentences.
> 
> I ask because I've been chatting with a charming Chinese lady who seems 
> to find me interesting ;-) through some sort of translation program that 
> translates entire Email messages both directions.  It seems to do an 
> amazingly good job in fact.  We're toying with the idea of her coming 
> out here (US) to visit me, so it may be helpful to have such a 
> whole-sentence translation program available at a moment's notice.
> 
> So, any suggestions?  Thanks for the ideas!

On Mac OS X, Sherlock has a translation channel that claims to do this 
translation.  Whether it's accurate is not something I could evaluate.

-- 
Tom "Tom" Harrington
Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X.
Version 2.0:  Delocalize, Repair Permissions, lots more.
See http://www.atomicbird.com/

On 2004-12-31, Tom Harrington 
<tph@pcisys.no.spam.dammit.net> wrote in 
<tph-A80D92.15353331122004@localhost>:
> In article <bhkBd.34979$wD4.18441@fe1.texas.rr.com>,
>  Gary Morrison <mr88cet@texas.net> wrote:
>
>> Do any of you have any positive or negative experience(s) with 
>> Chinese/English translation programs for the Macintosh?  I'm asking 
>> about something that can translate entire sentences.
[snip]
>
> On Mac OS X, Sherlock has a translation channel that claims to do this 
> translation.  Whether it's accurate is not something I could evaluate.

Is he looking for Mandarin or Cantonese?

In Sherlock I typed in "How much does it cost?" and it came back with 
something that I didn't have the skill to read, so I tried the more 
literal "How much money?" and instead of "duo1 shao3 qian2" (which I used 
on a daily basis when shopping in China) it produced "duo1 shao3 hou4 
bi4" which seems to be "How much currency."  For what it's worth.  I'm 
not at all good at Mandarin.  Without boring you with other examples, I 
didn't think it could interpret my meaning very well by returning the 
standard translations that were common in my textbooks.  Someone more 
learned should probably chime in here.

This isn't what you want, but it's nice anyway:
<http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/9954>

-- 
Huan

> Is he looking for Mandarin or Cantonese?

Written Chinese to written English and the reverse.  I'm assuming that 
the written-Chinese character usage is largely the same between 
Mandarin-speakers and Cantonese-speakers.

-- 

(Preferably reply to the newsgroup, please.  If you reply by Email, I
will sincerely try to receive your message, but it will probably get
buried in spam.)

> On Mac OS X, Sherlock has a translation channel that claims to do this 
> translation.  Whether it's accurate is not something I could evaluate.

That's a good tip;  thanks.

However, there appears to be a complication:  Best I can tell, that 
mechanism requires me to be on-line to be able to use it, and I don't 
expect to necessarily have internet access when I need translations. 
So, this seems like a good start, but a stand-alone program would be a 
lot better.

-- 

(Preferably reply to the newsgroup, please.  If you reply by Email, I
will sincerely try to receive your message, but it will probably get
buried in spam.)

Gary Morrison wrote:

> Written Chinese to written English and the reverse.  I'm assuming that 
> the written-Chinese character usage is largely the same between 
> Mandarin-speakers and Cantonese-speakers.

However, if I'm mistaken in that regard, the answer to your question is 
"Mandarin."

Oh, perhaps where dialect matters relates to how the Chinese words would 
be entered from a US keyboard?

-- 

(Preferably reply to the newsgroup, please.  If you reply by Email, I
will sincerely try to receive your message, but it will probably get
buried in spam.)

On 2005-01-01, Gary Morrison <mr88cet@texas.net> wrote in 
<2ywBd.40289$yv2.32446@fe2.texas.rr.com>:
> Gary Morrison wrote:
>
>> Written Chinese to written English and the reverse.  I'm assuming that 
>> the written-Chinese character usage is largely the same between 
>> Mandarin-speakers and Cantonese-speakers.
>
> However, if I'm mistaken in that regard, the answer to your question is 
> "Mandarin."
>
> Oh, perhaps where dialect matters relates to how the Chinese words would 
> be entered from a US keyboard?
>
Yeah.  I think there's other methods, but I use the first one I found 
when poking around in OS X, which is to enter the pinyin and use the 
arrow keys to find the characters you want.

-- 
Huan

>>Oh, perhaps where dialect matters relates to how the Chinese words would 
>>be entered from a US keyboard?
> Yeah.  I think there's other methods, but I use the first one I found 
> when poking around in OS X, which is to enter the pinyin and use the 
> arrow keys to find the characters you want.

Ah, gotcha.

So, do you by chance have any experience with any other such programs?

One of my friends recommended a Mandarin Chinese *instruction* program 
called HyperChina, which is only available for the Mac, by the way 
(yeehah!).  It seems to include some strictly-cultural, non-language 
education too, so I'll look over the website for it 
(http://www.sinologic.com/hyperchina) again;  perhaps it may have one or 
more translation capabilities too.

-- 

(Preferably reply to the newsgroup, please.  If you reply by Email, I
will sincerely try to receive your message, but it will probably get
buried in spam.)