Lost in Translation?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve got an ongoing need to translate short bits of English into a variety of languages. The free online translators have been anywhere from bad to amusing. Are there any decent but still inexpensive applications out there that can do a better job than the online ones?

One example was we’d put up a notice that “movers would be in the building on Wednesday,” and fed it to the online translators. It came across (according to someone who natively speaks Russian) as the “shovers would be home on Wednesday” which they thought was amusing nonsense as they didn’t care when someone was going to be home - they wanted to know when they’d be in this building.

We need to translate from English to:

Spanish
Russian
German
Simplified Chinese

The stuff we’ll be translating is generally going to be general notices and communications to apartment tenants - things like “One of the elevators will be out of service for maintenance tomorrow” and “Please do not leave garbage here. If there is a problem with the garbage chute, or if you have something that will not fit into the chute, please call the office.”

2

I believe that there are sites you can sign up to where you post a snippet of text, and people will translate it for some minor fee.

I might have just made that up, though. I know that there’s a programming website like that and might have extended that idea out to translating. But still, you could probably contact your local Berlitz and see if they wouldn’t arrange some sort of mini-translation deal for you.

3

I think people on the dope would be more than willing to help with that. You’d have your translation for free in a matter of hours/minutes.

4

…and in more languages than you ever expected.

Movers will be in the building Wednesday:
Translokigistoj estos en la konstruaĵo merkrede.

One of the elevators will be out of service for repairs tomorrow:
Unu el la liftoj senfunkciiĝos porripare morgaŭ.

Please do not leave garbage here. If there is a problem with the garbage chute, or if you have something that will not fit into the chute, please call the office:
BV ne lasu rubaĵon tie ĉi. Se la rubaĵtubo problemas, aŭ se vi havas aferon, kiu tro grandas por la tubo, BV voku la oficejon.

Esperanto. :slight_smile: