does anyone know of a translator program that can help me out?

[mixedgirl]

Hello everybody,

I want to write a letter in English to my mom. However, she doesn't understand English, but only Chinese. My question is if anyone can recommend some sort of software or program that is able to translate my letter from English to Chinese. I was being told that there are certain programs that say the wrong thing instead, but I am wondering if anyone can give me any recommendation. Some of you may said how can't I possibly not know the language that my mom speaks and the truth is that I do speak Cantonese, but not enough to carry an important conversation. However, I don't write it at all nor speak it fluently. The reason is because I was born somewhere in South American and currently live in the United States. I can only speak Spanish and English fluently. My mom doesn't understand English and she only speaks a few word in Spanish. Currently, I am making one of the most important life decision in my life which is marrying a person who is an Hispanic-American and my mom is not supporting me at all. I wish I can talk to her as an adult in her language so she can see that I am serious. However, I can't and I am frustrated. There are things that she said that I am unable to comprehend at all and there are thing that I wish I can understand, but I don't. It's really a mess and I have feeling like a mess too. If anyone can help me, please do so.

[jmjiechu]

Firstly,I could't imagine how can you communicated with your mom this years.

Secondly,are you sure a letter in Chinese can help?

Thirdly,as far as I kown,the program you mentioned hasn't been invented yet.

[simonlaing]

HI Mixed Girl,

There is what you would call machine code translators around. You can buy some software . But as a word for word translation they are terrible and you lose all sense of feeling and most of the meaning. Unless it is a post card or a straight event poster it (like time 18:00 , where Pudong Airport ) it won't work well.

There is also the risk that it could send the wrong meaning that you don't care.

There are translators on the internet that you can search for to help you with this.

I'm working for a science patent specialty translation company www.sunyu.com. But we mostly deal with big companies and law firms.

You can make a webpage and use google or yahoo to translate, But it will still be of the machine translation style and will have issues for the people reading it.

One sentence I remember is Our garden is a harmonious hole in the ground. (They meant it went well together and was like a little valley. But the meaning could misconstrued).

Try a translation company or free-lancer,

Good luck,

Simon:)

[johnd]

The translation engines are really hit and miss. Try converting some Chinese text to English using Google Translate, and you will see the kind of results. I imagine the English to Chinese has similar problems. So if you want to write something considered and thoughtful, an automatic translation is just not going to work.

You said your Cantonese is not very good, but have you considered making a voice recording, or a video? That way you can take your time to work out what you are going to say, and edit it together.

[mixedgirl]

Hello everybody.

I want to say thank you for all of your responses.

For jmjiechu: Yes, you cant imagine how hard it is to communicate with my mom all these years. It is a really long and complicated answer. As far as I know, I think a letter will be able to help me. However, I am open for suggestion as well. Remember that my Cantonse isn't very good at all.

For simonlaing: Hi Simon. Thank you for your ideas. The whole idea of making a webpage and using yahoo or google to translate it sounds complicated. I am not guaranteed also that the meaning I am trying to express will the same as the translation of the webpage. I did thought about freelancing or looking for translation companies. However, this is a personal matter and I wanted to find about a program that can help me out before relying myself to look for companies or freelancers to help me.

For johnd: yeah, I knew that automatic translation wasn't going to work. I wanted to make sure though. About the voice recording or video, well.... it is a creative idea. The problem that I find is that I don't know to say some words in Cantonese. The planning and editing part is not going to work if I just don't know the words that I want to say. This is the problem that I find when communicating with my parents.