Do any of you have any positive or negative experience(s) with 
Chinese/English translation programs for the Macintosh?  I'm asking 
about something that can translate entire sentences.

I ask because I've been chatting with a charming Chinese lady who seems 
to find me interesting ;-) through some sort of translation program that 
translates entire Email messages both directions.  It seems to do an 
amazingly good job in fact.  We're toying with the idea of her coming 
out here (US) to visit me, so it may be helpful to have such a 
whole-sentence translation program available at a moment's notice.

So, any suggestions?  Thanks for the ideas!

-- 

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Gary Morrison:
> Do any of you have any positive or negative experience(s) with 
> Chinese/English translation programs for the Macintosh?  I'm asking 
> about something that can translate entire sentences.

> I ask because I've been chatting with a charming Chinese lady who seems 
> to find me interesting ;-) through some sort of translation program that 
> translates entire Email messages both directions.  It seems to do an 
> amazingly good job in fact.  We're toying with the idea of her coming 
> out here (US) to visit me, so it may be helpful to have such a 
> whole-sentence translation program available at a moment's notice.

> So, any suggestions?

Definitely have a suggestion. Find a new love interest.

> Thanks for the ideas!

I doubt you'll thank me for this one.

Davoud -- Lived in Asia for many years.

-- 
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com

In article <bhkBd.34979$wD4.18441@fe1.texas.rr.com>,
 Gary Morrison <mr88cet@texas.net> wrote:

> Do any of you have any positive or negative experience(s) with 
> Chinese/English translation programs for the Macintosh?  I'm asking 
> about something that can translate entire sentences.
> 
> I ask because I've been chatting with a charming Chinese lady who seems 
> to find me interesting ;-) through some sort of translation program that 
> translates entire Email messages both directions.  It seems to do an 
> amazingly good job in fact.  We're toying with the idea of her coming 
> out here (US) to visit me, so it may be helpful to have such a 
> whole-sentence translation program available at a moment's notice.
> 
> So, any suggestions?  Thanks for the ideas!

On Mac OS X, Sherlock has a translation channel that claims to do this 
translation.  Whether it's accurate is not something I could evaluate.

-- 
Tom "Tom" Harrington
Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X.
Version 2.0:  Delocalize, Repair Permissions, lots more.
See http://www.atomicbird.com/

On 2004-12-31, Tom Harrington 
<tph@pcisys.no.spam.dammit.net> wrote in 
<tph-A80D92.15353331122004@localhost>:
> In article <bhkBd.34979$wD4.18441@fe1.texas.rr.com>,
>  Gary Morrison <mr88cet@texas.net> wrote:
>
>> Do any of you have any positive or negative experience(s) with 
>> Chinese/English translation programs for the Macintosh?  I'm asking 
>> about something that can translate entire sentences.
[snip]
>
> On Mac OS X, Sherlock has a translation channel that claims to do this 
> translation.  Whether it's accurate is not something I could evaluate.

Is he looking for Mandarin or Cantonese?

In Sherlock I typed in "How much does it cost?" and it came back with 
something that I didn't have the skill to read, so I tried the more 
literal "How much money?" and instead of "duo1 shao3 qian2" (which I used 
on a daily basis when shopping in China) it produced "duo1 shao3 hou4 
bi4" which seems to be "How much currency."  For what it's worth.  I'm 
not at all good at Mandarin.  Without boring you with other examples, I 
didn't think it could interpret my meaning very well by returning the 
standard translations that were common in my textbooks.  Someone more 
learned should probably chime in here.

This isn't what you want, but it's nice anyway:
<http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/9954>

-- 
Huan

> Is he looking for Mandarin or Cantonese?

Written Chinese to written English and the reverse.  I'm assuming that 
the written-Chinese character usage is largely the same between 
Mandarin-speakers and Cantonese-speakers.

-- 

(Preferably reply to the newsgroup, please.  If you reply by Email, I
will sincerely try to receive your message, but it will probably get
buried in spam.)

> On Mac OS X, Sherlock has a translation channel that claims to do this 
> translation.  Whether it's accurate is not something I could evaluate.

That's a good tip;  thanks.

However, there appears to be a complication:  Best I can tell, that 
mechanism requires me to be on-line to be able to use it, and I don't 
expect to necessarily have internet access when I need translations. 
So, this seems like a good start, but a stand-alone program would be a 
lot better.

-- 

(Preferably reply to the newsgroup, please.  If you reply by Email, I
will sincerely try to receive your message, but it will probably get
buried in spam.)

Gary Morrison wrote:

> Written Chinese to written English and the reverse.  I'm assuming that 
> the written-Chinese character usage is largely the same between 
> Mandarin-speakers and Cantonese-speakers.

However, if I'm mistaken in that regard, the answer to your question is 
"Mandarin."

Oh, perhaps where dialect matters relates to how the Chinese words would 
be entered from a US keyboard?

-- 

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will sincerely try to receive your message, but it will probably get
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On 2005-01-01, Gary Morrison <mr88cet@texas.net> wrote in 
<2ywBd.40289$yv2.32446@fe2.texas.rr.com>:
> Gary Morrison wrote:
>
>> Written Chinese to written English and the reverse.  I'm assuming that 
>> the written-Chinese character usage is largely the same between 
>> Mandarin-speakers and Cantonese-speakers.
>
> However, if I'm mistaken in that regard, the answer to your question is 
> "Mandarin."
>
> Oh, perhaps where dialect matters relates to how the Chinese words would 
> be entered from a US keyboard?
>
Yeah.  I think there's other methods, but I use the first one I found 
when poking around in OS X, which is to enter the pinyin and use the 
arrow keys to find the characters you want.

-- 
Huan

>>Oh, perhaps where dialect matters relates to how the Chinese words would 
>>be entered from a US keyboard?
> Yeah.  I think there's other methods, but I use the first one I found 
> when poking around in OS X, which is to enter the pinyin and use the 
> arrow keys to find the characters you want.

Ah, gotcha.

So, do you by chance have any experience with any other such programs?

One of my friends recommended a Mandarin Chinese *instruction* program 
called HyperChina, which is only available for the Mac, by the way 
(yeehah!).  It seems to include some strictly-cultural, non-language 
education too, so I'll look over the website for it 
(http://www.sinologic.com/hyperchina) again;  perhaps it may have one or 
more translation capabilities too.

-- 

(Preferably reply to the newsgroup, please.  If you reply by Email, I
will sincerely try to receive your message, but it will probably get
buried in spam.)

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.sys.mac.apps.]
On 2005-01-01, Gary Morrison <mr88cet@texas.net> wrote in 
<OfFBd.36146$wD4.8351@fe1.texas.rr.com>:
>> Yeah.  I think there's other methods, but I use the first one I found 
>> when poking around in OS X, which is to enter the pinyin and use the 
>> arrow keys to find the characters you want.
>
> Ah, gotcha.
>
> So, do you by chance have any experience with any other such programs?

Other what?  Input methods?  No.  I started out by going to the 
International settings in System Preferences, and added simplified 
Chinese to the lists in "Languages" and "Input Menu" also checking the 
box that displays the input menu in the menubar.  Command-space also 
changes between input methods.  So when I want to write in Chinese, and 
I'm in an app that accepts it, I just use command-space and type pinyin, 
then use the arrow key to browse through the list of characters that 
comes up as a result of typing the pinyin.

TextEdit and Study Card Studio Lite work well with Chinese, and that 
program that was linked in my previous post, WordLookup.

>
> One of my friends recommended a Mandarin Chinese *instruction* program 
> called HyperChina, which is only available for the Mac, by the way 
> (yeehah!).  It seems to include some strictly-cultural, non-language 
> education too, so I'll look over the website for it 
> (http://www.sinologic.com/hyperchina) again;  perhaps it may have one or 
> more translation capabilities too.
>
This is interesting and I didn't see it before.  However it appears to be 
pre OS X, so I'll check out the demo when I boot into 9.

Studying Chinese is very worthwhile, but I'm not sure I condone internet 
dating. :-)

-- 
Huan

>>So, do you by chance have any experience with any other such programs?
> Other what?  Input methods?  

Uhm, no, other programs - other translation programs.  Looking at 
MacMall, I see one for the PC, but not for the Mac.

Thanks for the thoughts on Chinese-input methods, and the languages in 
the System Preferences thingie.

-- 

(Preferably reply to the newsgroup, please.  If you reply by Email, I
will sincerely try to receive your message, but it will probably get
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teste2