NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article
Globalink Power Translator Pro From Lernout & Hauspie(tm)
A Review by Joe Schork, President, December 99
jschork@hotmail.com
(click to email author)


The Globalink Power Translator Pro is a useful program that translates text from English to Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese. It also translates from these languages to English. The program is based on Barcelona Technology(tm).

The program loaded very easily, with no problems encountered. Nice to see that happens after trying to load other programs. I loaded this program on a Dell Dimension XPS R400mhz with 64 Meg of RAM. Some of the features of the program ran a slight bit slow, but it was understandable because of the complexity of what is happening in the background. The program uses a comprehensive set of linguistic rules and a form of artificial intelligence. It wasn't too long ago that a program of this magnitude would only run on mainframe computers, personal computers would not have had the power, speed and memory to run them.

There is one main part of the program that functions with your Word Processing program and that is the Global Power Translator Pro. There are three separate utilities:

1. Global Web Translation - allows you to translate Web Pages from any of the five languages to English and to also translate from English to any of these five languages.

2. Global Translation Utility - works with e-mail and also with Word Processing programs to let you translate.

3. Global Conversation Utility - this works great with chat or ICQ, can convert either way by the cut and paste method. It takes a little longer, but the advantage of being able to communicate in another language makes it worth while.

I had a difficult time using the program because my grammar leaves a lot to be desired. A person who had a good mastery of grammar would do well with this program.

Chapter 3 "Before you translate" is an excellent chapter to read through and absorb prior to doing any translation. I had a lot of difficulty because of my use of contracted words such as that's, how's, etc. You must use the proper English such as that is, how is. This chapter is a must.

The Web translation worked very well and I didn't have to worry about grammar, they were not written by me.....Laughing. I tried searching for Web sites in most of the languages and converting them to English. It worked really well, in some cases it was a little difficult to understand small parts, but with a little logic they could be understood. Just to try it out I took some English language sites and translated them into some of the other languages. It worked nicely; they actually looked rather attractive.

The Translation Utility worked with Email fairly well in the beginning, but after I loaded Windows 98 Second Edition and Internet Explorer I could not get it to work properly with Email. I am still working on that problem. This utility worked very well with MS Word 97. It puts a little icon in the title bar next to the minimize button. By selecting it after you have a document created you can pick direction to translate, then go back and click on it again and pick document or just a selection. I would pick the document and then sit and watch as it showed a progress report. When complete, it comes up in a separate window, which allows you to replace existing document with translated copy, to make a copy of translated document, or to print a copy.

The Conversion utility that I used in chat and ICQ is best used in a private chat, the reason being that so many want to get involved its hard to keep track and cut and paste quick enough. In fact at times I didn't know some people were talking to me. With private chat, especially one with a person that speaks both languages, gives you an excellent opportunity to find out how the translation is going and what errors you are making.

The Power Translator pro works almost like a word processor itself. You can bring it up and type your document right into it. It shows the same in both windows until you translate and then the bottom window shows the translated document. You can also open an existing document into it and translate from that point. Both ways worked fine.

I found the program to be quite useful, fun and informative. I kept getting stymied by my lack of a good foundation in grammar; that's why I repeat that it is a good idea to read and understand Chapter 3, especially if you are going to seriously use the program. Price when ordered from Lernout & Hauspie is $149.99. They are the company that now owns Power Translator Pro.

Lernout & Hauspie
52 Third Avenue
Burlington, MA 01803
781-203-5000
781-238-0986 Fax
http://www.lhs.com


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