Translating Eng to Spanish using Word 2002

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Guest

I work in a school in NYC where we constantly send out letters to parents and
the community in English and Spanish. In the past we have always had to find
someone to translate the english letter to spanish hand written letter. Then
one of the office staff must type the letter. But we have noticed that on
Microsoft Word 2002 there is a function to "translate" your document.
However we are not having any luck with it. We keep getting a pop-up asking
us to insert the the Microsoft XP Standard Disc to install the component for
language settings. We do not have that disc on hand - is there another way
we can activate the "translation" component of our Word 2002? It would save
us a lot of time if we could type a letter, highlight it and click "translate
to spanish" - work would be much easier.

Thank you
M. Ocasio
 
You would do well to stay with the system whereby you find somebody to
translate.. online translation services are not reliable enough, and you
could well find your company being compromised by a simple misunderstanding
brought about by inaccurate translation..

I know of a small British owned company in Spain that invented and made a
really good product.. they wanted it to sell across Europe, so had printed
one thousand packaging boxes and instructions.. to save money, they used an
online translator to formulate the German, French, Dutch and Portuguese
translations.. obviously, English and Spanish were no problem.. one day, a
guy came along to look at the product production line, and was shown a box..
he started to laugh as he read the text on the box.. he translated into
English the Portuguese text.. now everybody was laughing except the company
accountant, who only the day before had paid for the boxes..

A more serious situation than instructions on how to work an intrinsically
simple device could have lead to litigation and a fight..
 
Anando

There is one online translator I have looked at recently that acquits itself
reasonably well, but in a business scenario, I doubt that it would be
acceptable..

If I could find the link, I would share it with you.. will look it out..

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/user



Anando said:
Hmm....interesting ;-)

--

Anando
Microsoft MVP- Windows Shell/User
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| You would do well to stay with the system whereby you find somebody to
| translate.. online translation services are not reliable enough, and you
| could well find your company being compromised by a simple
misunderstanding
| brought about by inaccurate translation..
|
| I know of a small British owned company in Spain that invented and made a
| really good product.. they wanted it to sell across Europe, so had printed
| one thousand packaging boxes and instructions.. to save money, they used
an
| online translator to formulate the German, French, Dutch and Portuguese
| translations.. obviously, English and Spanish were no problem.. one day, a
| guy came along to look at the product production line, and was shown a
box..
| he started to laugh as he read the text on the box.. he translated into
| English the Portuguese text.. now everybody was laughing except the
company
| accountant, who only the day before had paid for the boxes..
|
| A more serious situation than instructions on how to work an intrinsically
| simple device could have lead to litigation and a fight..
|
| --
| Mike Hall
| MVP - Windows Shell/user
|
|
|
| message | >I work in a school in NYC where we constantly send out letters to parents
| >and
| > the community in English and Spanish. In the past we have always had to
| > find
| > someone to translate the english letter to spanish hand written letter.
| > Then
| > one of the office staff must type the letter. But we have noticed that
on
| > Microsoft Word 2002 there is a function to "translate" your document.
| > However we are not having any luck with it. We keep getting a pop-up
| > asking
| > us to insert the the Microsoft XP Standard Disc to install the component
| > for
| > language settings. We do not have that disc on hand - is there another
| > way
| > we can activate the "translation" component of our Word 2002? It would
| > save
| > us a lot of time if we could type a letter, highlight it and click
| > "translate
| > to spanish" - work would be much easier.
| >
| > Thank you
| > M. Ocasio
|

Good advice. The main problem with translating software is that for the most
part, it just does word-for-word translation and knows nothing about
grammar, syntax and idiomatic usage. While it might be possible to translate
a document in this way with the result being understandable, it will
probably look like it was composed by someone semi-literate.
 
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