Italian and Latin

Barbara Passaris · Post by **Barbara Passaris** » Mon October 27th, 2008, 11:37 pm

Does anyone know if the online translators that are "hooked" to my word program are reliable?

Also, where can I find a way to translate English into Latin? Is there a reliable source (book) that anyone in the HF family knows about?

Thanks so much.

Barb Passaris

Ash · Post by **Ash** » Mon October 27th, 2008, 11:40 pm

Here's a trick to see if any of those online things are reliable.

Take a well known literary phrase from English - say 'frankly my dear I don't give a damn'. Translate it to language A. Then take that translation and translated it to language B. Then go from language B to English. If it doesn't make sense, then you probably don't want to use that system.

This is actually fun to do, just for the laughs you get at the very end.

Susan · Post by **Susan** » Mon October 27th, 2008, 11:42 pm

[quote=""Barbara Passaris""]Also, where can I find a way to translate English into Latin? Is there a reliable source (book) that anyone in the HF family knows about?[/quote]

I Googled "english to latin translation" and got a lot of sites.

Barbara Passaris · Post by **Barbara Passaris** » Tue October 28th, 2008, 12:31 am

Thanks, all,

I'll check all of the above out. I'm a stickler for getting it right.

Barb

sweetpotatoboy · Post by **sweetpotatoboy** » Tue October 28th, 2008, 11:04 am

The truth is that no online translator is fully reliable. No doubt they have improved, but are best used only for simple sentences and for helping you get the gist of something, rather than as a faithful representation of the original.

Ash's trick is a helpful one and should prove that, for anything more complex than "the cat is on the mat", they are not fully reliable.

(But then, as someone who has worked as a translator in the past, I would say that.)