Many users happily use the spelling checker in Firefox while posting, and it works quite well with English. My posts occasionally include a few words in French, and Firefox flags them all as misspellings. I could, of course, just ignore the flagging, but since my French spelling is uncertain (at best) it would be nice to be able to check them also.
The result is very useful, if imperfect. Only one dictionary is active at a time, so in any bilingual text all words in one of the languages will be shown as misspelled. Starting with the English dictionary active, I enter:
Here are some words in English, voici quelques mots en français
Most of the French words are flagged. Right clicking on one of them gives me the usual menu, but towards the bottom is a line where I can select the language. Choosing French confirms that all the French words are correctly spelled, but flags all the rest of my text.
Since my initial posting I have been looking around and things are getting interesting!
The Dictionaries page in the add ons section has a long list of dictionaries with no comment other than occasionally cryptic abbreviations in parentheses. There are five German dictionaries; some of the abbreviations are clear. Thus (de-ch) seems to stand for the Swiss version, while (de-at) would be Austrian, with (de-de) being "standard". But what to make of (de-de-alt)? Obviously an "alternate" dictionary, but in what way?
My own confusion is with the French: There is a comment-free French and a French (fr-fr). I am not sure which I downloaded, but whichever it is I was able to check (Tools -> Add-ons) that it is "Dictionnaire MySpell en Français".
Fooling around with Google I found another extension that some may find useful, a Dictionary Switcher that, according to the web page, "Toggles between the installed dictionaries automatically or manually and displays the currently selected dictionary in the status bar". Not sure how useful it would be for me, will install it when (if!) I find a need for it.
Earlier today I posted a brief note on using Google Translate in a long thread in which my note got lost. I would like to expand on what I see as a very valuable tool for those who surf in a multilingual world.
Google Translate gives you two options: you may either enter some text to translate, or you may enter a URL. In the latter case the whole target page will be translated and, even better, clicking on a link will lead you to a translation of the linked-to page. The quality is uneven, but the translation in almost all cases gives you at least the gist of the page (often much better).
So if someone posts a link to something in German, a language I do not understand at all, I can copy the url and paste it into Google Translate in another tab. And if I post a link to an article in Le Temps , which I do de temps en temps (from time to time), the many non-francophones here can read it in translation.
Another useful tool for Firefox users is the translator extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3361 . No more need for cutting and pasting - it lets you translate a page just by right-clicking on it.
An added bonus is that you can choose from a list of translation services (babel fish, google translate and others).
Another very convenient way to use google translate is to use the translator robot to your gtalk friends list e.g. to translate from German to English add [[email protected]](mailtoð[email protected]) to your gtalk list. Start chatting with this bot and type some German stuff and your friends will echo back the english translation. If you want to translate from english to german then the bot address to use is [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) . Works for other langauges too. Would have been nice if there was something like auto2en@..... but there isn't
You will soon discover that google translate isn't accurate but still very helpful. Also it doesn't tranlate a lot of complex sounding words like legal stuff etc. For those I use this dictionary .
While sending an email to people who speak only German I usually follow this. Compose the text for your email in English Translate the text to German Translate this German text back to English only to realize that things are getting messed up. Simplify the original english text and repeat the first three steps till the English text from 3rd step conveys more or less what I wanted it to convey. Translate the English text from the step above into German and use this translated stuff as the text/body of my email. Attach the original English text to the email and write a P.S. saying the german text is an automatic translation and in case of confusion English version should be referred to. I used this to discuss something with my real estate agent for I was warned that she can't speak anything other than German. She replied back in English
[QUOTE=kops;381904] sending an email to people who speak only German I usually follow this.
Thank you for the excellent advice. I have learned over time to use the procedure you detailed.
When there is a problem with the English>German translation, I would add, consider the possibilities for misunderstanding. Try different words that are similar and are more direct, this is, do not have other meanings that could be offensive or maybe confusing. It the subject is difficult, you can add more sentences expressing your message with different words.
Even if you discover the German can write in English, I discovered they do this for your benefit, yet, their understanding of English is very limited and subject to gross misunderstanding. My best results for difficult subjects have been speaking and writing in German and let them reply in German.
[QUOTE=RetiredInNH;256666] I would like to expand on what I see as a very valuable tool for those who surf in a multilingual world.
Thank you! I live in the Switzerland mountains in the spring, summer and autumn and Palma de Mallorca in winter. Among German, Spanish and occasional French, Italian, and Latin, I am immersed every day in another language. I will use every one of your tips.
Some nice tips here, some of which I must investigate further.
Just last week I discovered http://lingro.com/ which has a browser plugin allowing you to click on a word to receive a translation. What I like about it is that it remembers the words you've clicked on and you can review them at a later time, group them into lists, and play a simple flashcard game with them.
Main page is now slightly less cryptic, but clicking on one of the French dictionaries led me to a page which explains (briefly) the 1990 spelling "reforms" and suggests which dictionary to use.
Thanks to all for these great tips! If anyone has found similar plug-ins or add-ons for Google Chrome, please post them. I would really like something to translate just a single word with a click. I think this would be a good compromise to help with learning instead of just pasting into Google translate and getting something ok, but not quite perfect. The company I work for uses Google for our email and having the ability to translate built in is helpful but on the other hand it takes away some of the "forced learning".
These translation tools are getting better all the time however, the prepositions (of, from, about, etc) are always a problem since every culture/language is different, and one of those things "you just have to memorize" when learning a language.
You can add the great (and free) dict.cc dictionary to the Mac's dictionary app, and then you can right click on any word in any window to look it up. It works great!
Thanks for this website by the way, it is great for practicing:
Does anyone have any recommendations for a good iPhone German dictionary? I've tried looking, but there are so many it's quite confusing. Some even appear to be the same dictionary in different apps, and you can never tell until you buy it. I'd be willing to pay the price for a good one. So far, I use the dict.cc iPhone app, and it's very good considering that it's free, but it's lacking a few things I'd like, such as the gender. You only see the gender of a German word when looking up the translation for an English word. It will show the equivalent German word or words with gender in that case. However, if I look up a German word, it shows me the meaning in English but doesn't tell me the gender.