# Do you know of a good English to German translator program?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-of-a-good-english-to-german-translator-program/392972>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [February 20, 2007, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-of-a-good-english-to-german-translator-program/392972 "2007-02-20T16:37:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Surbey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Surbey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surbey)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2007, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-of-a-good-english-to-german-translator-program/392972/1 "2007-02-20T16:37:18Z")

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I’m looking for a program that will allow a person to write e-mails and letters to Germans. The woman is in her 50’s and so would the Germans she’s writing to. Any ideas?

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**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2007, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-of-a-good-english-to-german-translator-program/392972/2 "2007-02-20T16:49:12Z")

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As far as I have read, machine translation is still many years away from being any good.

A few words here and there, yes, but input a letter in English and end up with the same letter in German? Nope.

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**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2007, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-of-a-good-english-to-german-translator-program/392972/3 "2007-02-20T16:51:40Z")

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[Babelfish](http://babelfish.altavista.com/) does a better job going that way than the other but seems to have problems with German in general. Whatever you use, whether it’s free or you pay for it and there doesn’t seem to be any difference in results, keep your sentences short and simple with neither asides nor dependent clauses and lose any arcane or idiomatic vocabulary. Also, they all seem whimsical where they put the negative modifier so it helps a LOT to sorta speak the language so you can judge if the translation has completely reversed your meaning. :eek: