Translation Software
 

I've been using Google translation to read all sorts of interesting Chinese websites, but I seem not to be able to grab the text and paste it elsewhere. Plus if the webpage is too big, it only translates the first chunk.

Is there a commerical product for this? Interested in both Cantonese and Mandarin...

thanks much

Years back, Twinbridge was the most popular software translation package. Don't know how it ranks today, though.

There is (almost) no difference between the written forms of these languages.

As far as your question is concerned, I don't know of any commercial products that are able to perform nice translations, but there are some pretty good dictionary sites out there that are useful for looking up individual terms.

moondog's right re translation...you have a few options:

1) Ue google
2) Use a website like I use called www.adsotrans.com This translates better than google but it will only do chunks at a time
3) Learn Chinese :D

not sure about moondog's idea that written Cantonese and Mandarin are almost the same. HK Cantonese speaking uses traditional characters rather than simplified. Try getting a mainlander to read traditional characters...they have an idea of the meaning but it's quite different

I second giving adsotrans a try if you're looking for something free.

Just a note though, if you're trying to translate anything technical or even somewhat complex in any way, no software is going to be able to spit out exactly what you want. And yes, although the meaning is usually the same between traditional and simplified Chinese, parts can look quite different i.e.

I need this translated right now.
我需要这个翻译的权利。(simplified)
我需要這個翻譯的權利。(traditional)

And of course, if you reverse translate, you get -

"I need this translation rights."

So if possible, don't depend on just translate software for Chinese-English, English-Chinese translation.

Just to comment that a useful tool is to send the Chinese text as a Google Talk instant message to [email protected]

English to Chinese is [email protected] (Don't expect perfection.)