Germans: Useful online translation-tools

[ILOVEFURTOO]

Hello fellow countrymen,

 

I would like to share two links with you that I find very useful. First a free online dictionary designed by the TU Munich. If you click on the

[Worker 11811]

I rely, pretty much, on Systran. >> www.systransoft.com <<

 

One thing, however, is that you can't rely on translation engines. They are good for the "quick and dirty" phrase or for making an unreadable web page understandable but, if you trust them beyond their limits, you WILL get into trouble!

[ILOVEFURTOO]

It really gets funny when you take a phrase, have it translated, take that translated phrase and have it translated into another language and so forth. I took the liberty to do this with your last post using Systran. Here we go:

 

One thing, however, is that you can't rely on translation engines. They are good for the "quick and dirty" phrase or for making an unreadable web page understandable but, if you trust them beyond their limits, you WILL get into trouble!

 

English --> German

Eine Sache ist jedoch, da

[Worker 11811]

That's great!

 

I was thinking something along those lines, so I tried it with the phrase, "I love ice cream."

 

After all the translations it came back, "Taste of the ice cream."

 

Yours is a lot funnier!

[allfurme]

I think the translation tools are good. At least if we are responding to a person who has a different first language we are making an effort. It is also good because that person might even think i can speak the language (albeit badly).

 

Does anyone out their think that generally, females are better than males when it comes to learning foreign languages? i am useless at it.

 

Est-ce que n'importe qui hors du leur pense cela g

[Worker 11811]

I watch a lot of foriegn (non-American) movies with subtitles as part of my job.

 

I notice two things:

 

First, if you know a few words in one language you can often pick up what's being said in another. If you know a little Spanish you can pick up Italian pretty quickly. The same holds true for German and French but not so easily.

 

Second, if the movie is good enough, it doesn't matter what language the film is in. After about 15-20 minutes, you will instinctively stop reading the subtitles and pay attention to the movie. You will seem to understand the dialog, even if you don't entirely understand the language. I know a smattering of Spanish but, if I pay attention, I can get about one word in ten out of a French movie. If the movie is good enough (not one of those movies where French actors just sit in the same room and talk for two hours ) a 10% comprehension rate is more than enough for me to understand everything I need to know. I can pick the rest of the details up from glancing at the subtitles every minute or so.

 

I think the best way to learn a language is to watch subtitled programs. More people should turn on the "SAP" (Second Audio Program) feature of their TVs and listen in Spanish or French.

 

Sorry, there is very little German SAP in the area where I live. I'm near enough to Canada so I'm exposed to a little bit of French Canadian and, in the U.S., Spanish is quickly becoming a prominent second language.

[ILOVEFURTOO]

Actually I made the fastest progressions with my English skills in the past four years. Back then I moved to a new city and made new friends here. One of them lived in Australia for a year and has the habit of watching movies in English. One day he came up with 'Futurama' video CDs that his brother had given him to his birthday. I'm a big Matt Groning fan so I started borrowing these CDs and watched them. At first I understood maybe half of it, but I kept going on. I was amazed to notice that little by little all my vocabulary that I learned in school and that I had long forgotten came back.

Nowadays I watch Simpsons, Futurama, Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5 on DVD in English and I understand almost everything. When I hear a new word I look it up in my English Learner's Dictionary, write it on a file card and memorize it. I hated that at school and never did it, but today it's real fun. Generally it's a lot easier for me to understand AE then BE, but that also depends a lot on the movie. Among the last movies I watched Domino, Charlie And The Chocolade Factory, King Arthur and The Meaning Of Life were easy. Syriana, Layer Cake and Footbal Factory were hard. But Naked Lunch, that really was a pain in the *ss.

I had no chance yet speaking or writing it myself and these are my first experiments here on The Fur Den. So, like I said before, I'd appreciate it a lot if you'd tell me where I make mistakes in my spelling or in my grammar. What I really have to look up one day is where you make commas. I must have missed that day at school.

Concerning the question if either man or women learn foreign languages easier, the last thing that I heared was that one assumes nowadays that this has no influence. Musicians with an developed ear though have an advantage because the area in their brains that processes acoustic informations is altered significantly. They therefore have the better accent.

 

My personal strategy is, sometimes when you don't understand one word, cut the crap and focus on the essence. Like when you don't understand 'The Big Lebowski', why not watch the f*cking short version:

http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/06071903.html

 

Enjoy, Yogi