Taking its name from a translating fish in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Babel Fish has been helping language learners communicate for years. Originally hosted by Altavista, this online translator is now branded as part of the Yahoo! Network.
Available Languages
Babel Fish offers translations for the following languages:
- Spanish
- French
- German
- Italian
- Russian
- Portuguese
- Greek
- Dutch
As well, they translate
- Simplified Chinese
- Traditional Chinese
- Japanese
- Korean
All of the available languages are paired with English, with both English-to-target language and target language-to-English translations. In addition, Babel Fish pairs French with Dutch, Portuguese, Greek, Italian, Spanish and German. You must have special characters enabled on your computer to view Chinese, Korean and Japanese translations.
Use
Babel Fish will translate up to 150 words at a time. Type or copy and paste your text into the box labeled "Translate a block of text" and click on the Translate button. Your translation will appear at the top of the screen.
In addition, the site can convert entire websites from one language to another. Just enter a URL into the "Translate a web page" area and click. The translated page will appear in a frame.
Babel Fish recommends using proper spelling and grammar for the best results.
Limitations
Although Babel Fish is a useful tool, it shares the limitations of most online translators in that it cannot recognize context. For instance, if you want write about flying in Spanish, you could input the word "fly" into the Babel Fish interface and select "English to Spanish". The Spanish word that appears is mosca. This is definitely a correct translation of "fly"…if you're talking about an insect buzzing around your computer. Trying to improve your results, you next try "to fly" so that the program will recognize it as a verb. The translation you receive is para volar, which roughly means "in order to fly", a grammatical construction that may or may not be correct, depending on how you word your sentence.
Bottom Line
If you encounter a few unfamiliar words, it may be easier to type them in to Babel Fish than to get out a dictionary. If you find a website in a language you don't read, and you just want to get a general idea of the content, the web page translation tool is essential. However, if you are completing a school assignment or writing a piece that will be shared with a wider audience, you are more likely to create awkward, if not outright incorrect, translations than you are to truly communicate. In the end, nothing can replace solid instruction and true knowledge of the language.