Bonjour mes Amis,
Je,I mean I,read with interest the mailing from our friend Nicholas Fournier,
who recently sent an email in the French language,and the responses to said
mail...
I was especially amused to see the babel fish comments,and to learn of the
Douglas Adams fans out there,(Hi Joe).
Recenty,I bought a British computer magazine,called PC Review (Dec 97
issue),also available in the USA. As one of the two excellent cover CD's this
issue had one called Power Translator,(French edition),a full program,by a
company called Globalink,and on the other Disk,was Power Translator 6.0
(30-day demo) translating English to,and from Spanish,French,German and
Italian.
I was sceptical,as usual,but it really does do what it says it does,(with
limitations at this stage,of course),but it IS very fast,and it sure beats
struggling with dictionaries.
It is capable of translating typed text to/from English/French,or translating
foreign web pages,and if it will READ back the translated text to you in
either English or French.(nb.If you put English text into the French
section,it reads it back with a French accent!).,I understand that if you use
it in conjunction with voice-type or Dragon dictate,you can read to the
program in English,and get it to read back to you, or a Frenchman in French
etc!
The way things develop in the world of computers,in just a few years I'm sure
we'll have those handheld Universal Translators,and eventually Star Trek
style versions!!
And we shouldn't have to wait until the 24th Century hopefully!
Anyhow,this is not meant to be an advertisement,but if interested then get a
hold of the December issue of PC Review,(black cover),or check out Globalink
at
<http://www.globalink.com>
FWIW,I typed in Nicolas's email,notwithstanding the 'read' errors
included,which I had to try and remove myself,and this is what came back from
the translator:
Hello all, I am Francais. I like a lot Triumph.
Unfortunately,I do not speak sufficiently well English to understand all
trades of the 'list',especially for the technical subjects.
I suppose that some understand equally better the
Francais,Switzerland,Belgian,Canada...
Demonstrate-numerous you,we could have can to be to communicate more easily.
Abiento.
Nicolas
Spitfire Wedgewood Blue 67.
Well,ca bon,nes pas?
Nicolas Fournier,BTW is the Vice-President of the large,(1000+ members),and
excellent French Spitfire Club "Amicale Spitfire",and since the
President:Francois Demont,and the Secretaire,Eric Noel,both have an excellent
command of the English Language,and both also have Compuserve accounts,like
Nicolas now has,I would venture to suggest that Nicolas's mailing was a touch
'tongue in cheek' if not in the 'english tongue'!!!
Who says the French don't have a sense of humour?
nb.Amicale Spitfire can be found at
<http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/spitfire>
There is also a link from the TSSC pages at the recently improved site at
<http://www.tssc-hq.demon.co.uk/TSSC.html>
Leon F Guyot
TSSC International Liaison,with one foot on each side of La Manche...
But,very sadly,not really bilingual,but I try my best.
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