My wife, who is literate in three languages, thinks the machine translations are hopeless. She does admit that one can get the essence of the source viewed through a prism of very bad grammar. She says the most serious problem is something called in French a "false friend." Don't ask me what the French word is that she used. This is where a word is translated literally from one language to another, but in the context it means something entirely different. There is also the problem such as translating "Venetian Blinds" or "blind Venetian." I once saw the Russian for a hydraulic ram translated as water goat. That is probably an example of a "false friend." In the U.S. there was a popular car named Nova. In English this name implies great power and brilliance. Chevrolet could not understand why they were having trouble selling this car in Mexico until someone pointed out that "no va" means in Spanish "doesn't go." Steve McLeod Broad Run, Virginia http://smcleod.home.infionline.net/ genealogy@broadrunit.com "Carole Carlson" <Califkaro@comcast.net> 10/10/2003 11:31 PM Please respond to SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN-ROOTS-L To: SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN-ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com cc: Subject: [S-H-RTS] Translation Software Slightly off topic: I'd be interested to know of experiences Listers have had using translation software. I have used some sites on line in the past for a few lines to translate another language to English. There are many (nonEnglish) German, Austrian and Czech sites that I'd like to research. I don't speak/read the languages. So I thought there might be software that would do the job fairly accurately. A Google search brought up many choices. One of my Austrian relatives who does not speak English uses translation software which seems to do a reliable job of translating my e-mails to him. Since these lists have so many people with such broad experience, I thought I'd ask for experiences/recommendations. Thanks for any suggestions. Carole Soenke Carlson Sacramento, CA ==== SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN-ROOTS Mailing List ==== The Frequently_Asked_Questions web-site can be found at: http://www.genealogy-sh.com/faq-sh-roots/index.htm