unlike the standard translation widget, this one diplays the text in the original and translated versions, with each translated word below the original. babelfish usually makes gibberish by itself, but if you know a little of the language it is translating from it can save a lot of time thumbing through a dictionary.
-- wabisabi, Aug 07 2004

This would actually be quite good, showing the connections between languages
-- hippo, Aug 08 2024


Slow, though.
-- pocmloc, Aug 08 2024


You're assuming a one-to-one mapping between words in different languages. But auxiliary verbs are going to mess with this, as are contractions, prepositions and probably some other things I haven't thought of yet.
-- pertinax, Aug 09 2024


GoogleTranslate™ does a fair version of this, and it's crap, due to [pert]'s wise note of main meaning words affected by interaction with auxiliary verbs, contractions, prepositions, pronouns (some languages have none!), context (does your language have a word for computers? AI?), and a bunch of other language-y things.

[wabisabi]'s version seems to ameliorate [pert]'s anticipated internal-language translation problems by stacking the translations, rather than having them appear side-to-side.

Stacked translations allow your brain to manage the translation as if it's happening simultaneously. If the translation is side-to-side, as in Google, the brain reads it as a linear 'done deal', rather than a contextual work in progress, which leads to misunderstandings, possibly world wars.

tldr: avoir un bun [+]
-- Sgt Teacup, Aug 09 2024



random, halfbakery