Working with LEO

On Sunday I translated a 3.5 page essay by Dresen into English. Aside from occasional document translations as a service to the community in Bowling Green, I haven’t translated longer texts since graduate school days. When I asked my housemate Arno if he had a dictionary, he suggested I also look online, which turned out to be a brilliant idea. I was able to test-drive LEO in the course of translating. With the Word document open on one side of my screen and LEO open on the other, I could input words and select the best equivalent. LEO is quicker than fumbling with paper, and generally offers lots of choices and some example phrases. But you do have to spend some time choosing the right equivalent – and not just select the first one. The same is true for using a traditional dictionary. As a graduate student, I conducted a study of inexpensive dictionaries and found that the biggest variables for the user’s ability to choose the right word equivalent are (1) familiarity with the dictionary’s symbols and abbreviations used in entries, and (2) taking the time to read through the entry and select the best equivalent. The online dictionary has a living element compared to its print version brothers: Some pages have a discussion board at the bottom, where translators from across the World Wide Web have helped each other tease out the best idiomatic equivalents, and this can be useful information to consider as well.

Find LEO at: http://dict.leo.org/

For those of you who were wondering why I don’t just use machine translation to translate the entire text, here’s an item I ran across while researching shoulder bags made by a designer here in Berlin. It’s got to be machine translation – no human being would do it this badly:

MILKBERLIN: The label and orange-colorends belt already for a long time the unmistakable registration number of the legendary Milkberlin bags became. Durably and water resistantly they are ideal for the large city jungle. The coolen companions touched from tarpaulins and DEK-eastopenly in the 70s Style, with flowers or simply - the fantasy of the Bag designers seems to know thereby no borders. Who does not find the correct bag in the net curtain, can its favorite also in the Onlineshop select itself.

From: http://www.fashionmission.nl/Fashion-Accessories-Handbags-Milkberlin--0039250007.dfs