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From: rrhett@liberty.uc.wlu.edu (Randolph L. Rhett)
Subject: computer translators
Message-ID: <1994Nov30.222404.5892@liberty.uc.wlu.edu>
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 22:24:04 GMT
Organization: Washington & Lee University
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I spend a great deal of time translating contracts and legal documents 
Spanish=>English and English=>Spanish. As a lowly clerk in a law firm, I 
can't suggest that it should be given over to professional translators. 
Most of the documents are too short to justify hiring someone to do them. 
In addition, since they have to be legally correct, as well as translated 
accurately, they always have to be corrected even if given to professional 
translators.

My translating skills are quite good, and I have the legal skills to 
correct these documents. However, it would be MUCH more efficient if I 
was correcting even a rough translation rather than writing one from 
scratch. Thus, I am intrigued by computer software translators.

Does anyone have any experience with them? The ideal one would translate 
paragraph by paragraph allowing me to interactively direct the 
translation and set preferences for jargon or atypical usage. It would 
also be able to translate headers, footers and text in graphs and tables 
while retaining their position and format. E.g. if a document says: 
CONTRATO DE ARRENDAMIENTO in a heading on every page, I don't want LEASE 
AGREEMENT floating randomly in text. 

Any thing like that out there? I have both Mac and Dos at my disposal, 
though I MUCH prefer Mac. 
