On 6/12/05 17:33, in article ,
"Phil L" wrote:

Sacha wrote:
Does anyone here speak good German? If so, would you be willing to
translate a couple of short emails back and forth between us and
Pillnitz gardens? If so, please email me at


I don't speak German but I do have this programme which is very good:

http://www.translation.net/systran_professional.html


If we get botanic, which we might, would it cope with that, in your
experience?
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

Sacha wrote:
On 6/12/05 17:33, in article
, "Phil L"
wrote:

Sacha wrote:
Does anyone here speak good German? If so, would you be willing to
translate a couple of short emails back and forth between us and
Pillnitz gardens? If so, please email me at


I don't speak German but I do have this programme which is very good:

http://www.translation.net/systran_professional.html


If we get botanic, which we might, would it cope with that, in your
experience?

It should do yes although I can't garuantee it, you can post a sample text
or something here and I will translate it to German and then translate it
back to English for a test if you wish, although IME of this, the
re-translation is never the same as the original though much better than
online translating tools.

On 6/12/05 19:40, in article ,
"Phil L" wrote:

Sacha wrote:
On 6/12/05 17:33, in article
, "Phil L"
wrote:

Sacha wrote:
Does anyone here speak good German? If so, would you be willing to
translate a couple of short emails back and forth between us and
Pillnitz gardens? If so, please email me at


I don't speak German but I do have this programme which is very good:

http://www.translation.net/systran_professional.html


If we get botanic, which we might, would it cope with that, in your
experience?

It should do yes although I can't garuantee it, you can post a sample text
or something here and I will translate it to German and then translate it
back to English for a test if you wish, although IME of this, the
re-translation is never the same as the original though much better than
online translating tools.


Thanks, Phil. As a sample then "We think that the Camellia we have here was
planted by Edward Hyams at least 50 years ago and customers of ours, who
have seen both are convinced it is the same as the one you have at Pillnitz.
When it next blooms, we propose to take photographs to send to you and also
to cut off some small, flowering branches and send them to you by the
quickest possible method."
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

Sacha wrote:
Thanks, Phil. As a sample then "We think that the Camellia we have
here was planted by Edward Hyams at least 50 years ago and customers
of ours, who have seen both are convinced it is the same as the one
you have at Pillnitz. When it next blooms, we propose to take
photographs to send to you and also to cut off some small, flowering
branches and send them to you by the quickest possible method."

German:
Wir denken, dass die Kamelie, die wir hier haben, von Edward Hyams
mindestens 50 Jahren und Kunden von unseren, die beide, es gesehen haben,
die selben, überzeugt sind dass die der ist Sie errichtet wurde vor, bei
Pillnitz haben.
Wenn es Folgende Blüte, schlagen wir vor, Fotographien zu nehmen, um zu
senden Ihnen und einige kleine, blühende Niederlassungen auch abzuschneiden
und sie Ihnen durch die schnellste mögliche Methode schicken.


And back to English:
We think that the Kamelie, which we have here of Edward Hyams saw to at
least 50 years and customers of ours, the two, it, the same, convinced are
that those that are you were established forwards, with Pillnitz to have.
If it the following bloom, we suggest to you taking photographs around to
send and some small send to also cut flowering addresses off and them to you
by the fastest possible method.

Not very good but I feel your OP was a bit 'icky' in it's wording...although
re-translation is not a good indicator of what it says in German!

In article ,
Phil L wrote:

Not very good but I feel your OP was a bit 'icky' in it's wording...although
re-translation is not a good indicator of what it says in German!

Precisely. It has bound the "von Edward Hyams mindestens 50 Jahren"
to the wrong verb, for a start.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 6/12/05 23:54, in article ,
"Phil L" wrote:

Sacha wrote:
Thanks, Phil. As a sample then "We think that the Camellia we have
here was planted by Edward Hyams at least 50 years ago and customers
of ours, who have seen both are convinced it is the same as the one
you have at Pillnitz. When it next blooms, we propose to take
photographs to send to you and also to cut off some small, flowering
branches and send them to you by the quickest possible method."

German:
Wir denken, dass die Kamelie, die wir hier haben, von Edward Hyams
mindestens 50 Jahren und Kunden von unseren, die beide, es gesehen haben,
die selben, überzeugt sind dass die der ist Sie errichtet wurde vor, bei
Pillnitz haben.
Wenn es Folgende Blüte, schlagen wir vor, Fotographien zu nehmen, um zu
senden Ihnen und einige kleine, blühende Niederlassungen auch abzuschneiden
und sie Ihnen durch die schnellste mögliche Methode schicken.


And back to English:
We think that the Kamelie, which we have here of Edward Hyams saw to at
least 50 years and customers of ours, the two, it, the same, convinced are
that those that are you were established forwards, with Pillnitz to have.
If it the following bloom, we suggest to you taking photographs around to
send and some small send to also cut flowering addresses off and them to you
by the fastest possible method.

Not very good but I feel your OP was a bit 'icky' in it's wording...although
re-translation is not a good indicator of what it says in German!


Thanks, Phil. I think I'll try to find a real live translator, though!
They're going into DNA testing of this particular Camellia and if we do get
involved in that, it's going to get a bit technical!
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

Sacha wrote:
On 6/12/05 23:54, in article
, "Phil L"
wrote:

Sacha wrote:
Thanks, Phil. As a sample then "We think that the Camellia we have
here was planted by Edward Hyams at least 50 years ago and customers
of ours, who have seen both are convinced it is the same as the one
you have at Pillnitz. When it next blooms, we propose to take
photographs to send to you and also to cut off some small, flowering
branches and send them to you by the quickest possible method."

German:
Wir denken, dass die Kamelie, die wir hier haben, von Edward Hyams
mindestens 50 Jahren und Kunden von unseren, die beide, es gesehen
haben, die selben, überzeugt sind dass die der ist Sie errichtet
wurde vor, bei Pillnitz haben.
Wenn es Folgende Blüte, schlagen wir vor, Fotographien zu nehmen, um
zu senden Ihnen und einige kleine, blühende Niederlassungen auch
abzuschneiden und sie Ihnen durch die schnellste mögliche Methode
schicken.


And back to English:
We think that the Kamelie, which we have here of Edward Hyams saw to
at least 50 years and customers of ours, the two, it, the same,
convinced are that those that are you were established forwards,
with Pillnitz to have. If it the following bloom, we suggest to you
taking photographs around to send and some small send to also cut
flowering addresses off and them to you by the fastest possible
method.

Not very good but I feel your OP was a bit 'icky' in it's
wording...although re-translation is not a good indicator of what it
says in German!


Thanks, Phil. I think I'll try to find a real live translator,
though! They're going into DNA testing of this particular Camellia
and if we do get involved in that, it's going to get a bit technical!

I've enquired what the above passage means to German speaking people and
they verify that it's mostly gibberish!
The folk of newsgroup alt.german.usage are quite knowledgeable and this is
where I asked if the above German was comprehensible.

Sacha wrote:
On 6/12/05 17:33, in article ,
"Phil L" wrote:

Sacha wrote:

Does anyone here speak good German? If so, would you be willing to
translate a couple of short emails back and forth between us and
Pillnitz gardens? If so, please email me at


I don't speak German but I do have this programme which is very good:

http://www.translation.net/systran_professional.html

If we get botanic, which we might, would it cope with that, in your
experience?

Generally machine translation struggles a bit with specialist
vocabulary, but if you send the original English and the (eg Babelfish)
translation into German together then anything ambiguous they can look
at the English version for clarification. Ditto for their reply in
German you feed it through Babel and cross your fingers.

Poetry gets exceptionally mangled. But simple well structured sentences
using fairly common words and/or unknown or Latinate names do pretty
well. Unknown words are escaped in at the best guess position usually as
nouns or adjectives. Most of them started life translating computer
manuals and so fall back on that world model when all else fails.

Domain experts can usually get by talking to each other through it with
some minor hiccups. Short simple sentences work best!

New Scientist famously tortured one some years ago with a round trip
using Wordsworths "A host of golden daffodils" poem "host" became "CPU".

Online fragment at http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf122/sf122p16.htm

It is actually not all that far off considering...and they have improved
since then.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On 7/12/05 8:55, in article , "Martin
Brown" wrote:

snip
Online fragment at http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf122/sf122p16.htm

It is actually not all that far off considering...and they have improved
since then.

Thanks to you and Phil for your advice and comments on this. But I think it
could start to get a bit too tangled for this sort of thing. If Rusty's
sister is willing to help, it would be great.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

Sacha wrote:
On 7/12/05 8:55, in article , "Martin
Brown" wrote:

snip

Online fragment at http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf122/sf122p16.htm

It is actually not all that far off considering...and they have improved
since then.

Thanks to you and Phil for your advice and comments on this. But I think it
could start to get a bit too tangled for this sort of thing. If Rusty's
sister is willing to help, it would be great.

It depends a lot on how clearly you can write. If you write short
unambiguous sentences then you will get good results with machine
translation. Many modern technical words are the same in all languages
(except for those that have language police - French "Logiciel" for
instance).

At the very least you should ask the German collaborators to write to
you in German if it is much easier for them. It is unusual these days to
find German scientists without one of English or French as a second
language.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On 7/12/05 10:38, in article , "Martin
Brown" wrote:

Sacha wrote:
On 7/12/05 8:55, in article , "Martin
Brown" wrote:

snip

Online fragment at http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf122/sf122p16.htm

It is actually not all that far off considering...and they have improved
since then.

Thanks to you and Phil for your advice and comments on this. But I think it
could start to get a bit too tangled for this sort of thing. If Rusty's
sister is willing to help, it would be great.

It depends a lot on how clearly you can write. If you write short
unambiguous sentences then you will get good results with machine
translation. Many modern technical words are the same in all languages
(except for those that have language police - French "Logiciel" for
instance).

At the very least you should ask the German collaborators to write to
you in German if it is much easier for them. It is unusual these days to
find German scientists without one of English or French as a second
language.

At this stage I'm writing to the head gardener at Pillnitz and he doesn't
have any English. The email they sent me yesterday apologised for the
delay but explained it was because they had to find a translator. He has
asked me several questions about the Camellia we have in our garden which
might be a clone of the one they have but as that's what we're trying to
establish, the explanations and descriptions are a little complicated. I
suppose it could go to scientists later and yes, I daresay they or someone
on their staff would speak English. But this initial contact is with people
who have no English.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)