Translation tools on the web

[Sorrowjoy]

Hi, I´m new here. I am already enjoying the daily Shakespeare sonnets.

I´m German; I studied English/American literature and musicology in Heidelberg - but that´s about ten years ago! I´m now working in the marketing department of a big scientific publishing house. This is not my dream job, but I try do make the best out of it - browsing this forum

So this is my first question now:

Has anybody got a good link to translation tools on the web?

I mean, I´m looking for a site where I can write down a word and it gives me a (good!) equivalent in German or English/American/Slang.

Is there a good site for phrases and idioms?

At the moment I use the tools from <google.de> and <altavista.com> (Babelfish), which give only basic translations.

[Admin]

http://directory.google.com/Top/Science/Social_Sciences/Language_and_Linguistics/Translation/Tools/Online_Translation_Engines/?tc=1

[Sorrowjoy]

Thanks for this nice list. I will go through it.

Has anybody recommendations or good experience with any web tools though?

BTW: why do you (Admin) have an avatar, and I´m not allowed to?
Or was it a technical problem when I last tried to upload mine?

[Admin]

I don't have any special features... one other member has an avatar too. Yours should work.

[Eric, son of Chuck]

Yes, speaking of that, my avatar fit all the parameters but didn't load. I just thought it was because I'm on a Mac though. Seems to happen a lot.

[Admin]

could you tell me exactly what you did when trying to use an avatar?

[Admin]

there was a bug if you chose to upload your image instead of linking to it. I've fixed it.

[dearie]

Hi,

I'm new here, too and looking forward to reading Shakespeare's sonnets.
For English-German translations, the following link might be useful

http//dict.leo.org/

You will find everything you need - vocabulary for literature, technology, idioms etc. What's really great about it you can even contribute lists of words if you realize the dictionary is incomplete. The lists will be controlled and verified and added to the stock of entries which may by now be 300.000.

[Ditchwater]

For a general translation service, of particular words and expressions, rather than blocks of text (you will never find a computer programme that does a satisfactory job of bulk translation - at least I hope not), you can't beat http://europa.eu.int/eurodicautom/Controller. Well, you probably can, but it's the best tool I've found so far.