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Portable Translator Devices?

Posted by Cliff on from the the-universal-translators-of-tomorrow? dept.

Roger Binns asks: "I've been looking for an electronic language translator device (like a personal organiser form factor) that can do English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Unfortunately, they are extremely difficult to find on the Web, and the ones I have seen at airports are very expensive and tend to only do one non-English language." Cool idea. Where can one buy something like this? If I ever get the time to go to Europe, I would love to take along something like this. The potential for such a device is staggering.

4 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. ..or the Palm VII by hatless · · Score: 3

    Every fly-by-night electronics store in New York (and doubtless other immagrant meccas like L.A.) sells no-name handheld translation gadgets. Typically they only do a word (cheap) or sentence ($200 or so) at a time, not whole passages. You can get them with one language or with a bunch at once. Some have speech synthesis.

    If you have a Palm handheld with a fair amount of RAM (8MB), there are a fair number of translation dictionaries out there. They're all one-word-at-a-time, though, so one of the better dedicated handheld gadgets will serve you better.

    Or, as long as you stay in North America (whoops! not so good for travel!) you could get a Palm VII or get a Palm III or V with a snap-on wireless modem and use the GO Network translator, for which there is a query app that handles the usual 4 or 5 European languages.

  2. OOG TEST OUT TRANSLATOR!!! by OOG_THE_CAVEMAN · · Score: 5

    OOG STEAL TRANSLATOR FROM COMPANY, SO OOG SEE IF SPANISH WORK ON TRANSLATOR THROUGH TESTING VIA SLASHDOT POSTING:

    OOG ESCRIBE ESTE PÁRRAFO EN ESPAÑOL!!! A OOG LE GUSTA APLASTAR LAS CABEZAS CON LOS DISCOS COMPACTOS DE FUENTE ABIERTA!!! A OOG TAMBIÉN LE GUSTA FUMAR LA MARIGUANA DE CUEVA, BEBIR LA CERVEZA DE CUEVA, Y CHINGAR A LAS MUJERES DE CUEVA!!! OOG COME MUCHAS CABEZAS DE LOS PECES!!! PERO LA PERSONAS QUE A OOG NO LE GUSTAN SON TODOS LOS ÁRBITROS QUE NO ENTENDEN A OOG Y JUZGAN QUE LOS PÁRRAFOS DE OOG SON EXAGERADO (PORQUE NO TIENEN UN RAZÓN BIEN PARA SU MODERANDO MAL!!!) SI OOG JAMÁS ENCONTRA A UN DE LOS ÁRBITROS MALES, OOG LE DARÍA UN GOLPE EN EL CULO!!!

    OOG HAVE SUCCESS!!! TRANSLATOR WORK WELL FOR OOG!!! AND NO ACCUSE OOG OF USING BABELFISH, OOG ACTUALLY HAVE SENSE!!!

    --
    OOG THE OPEN SOURCE CAVEMAN!!! OOG BREAK HEAD WITH OPEN SOURCE CD!!!
  3. Re:Problems w/ translators by heidiporn · · Score: 3
    I will post this in case anyone else can benefit from it...

    My Spanish-English dictionary of choice -- I am practically in love with it-- is _The Oxford Spanish Dictionary_ (1994). Why do I adore it so? It is nearly 2000 pages of Spanish/English goodness, including >275,000 words/phrases, >450,000 translations, verb tables (every single verb in the dictionary is matched to a particular conjugation pattern found at the back of the book), aid with correspondence, weights and measures conversions, and lots of other helpful features.

    My favorite thing about this dictionary, however, is its inclusion of regional idioms and slang. Spanish varies markedly between countries, and this dictionary includes a tremendous number of those regional distinctions. For example, "chamaco" is a Mexican word meaning "boy" or "kid"... Though it is found only in the vocabulary of one Spanish-speaking country, it is included in the dictionary with the annotation "(Méx fam)," indicating that it is a familiar (as opposed to formal) Mexican expression. The same is done for regionalisms of Central America, the Caribbean, the Southern Cone, Spain, and all the other Spanish-speaking countries/regions.

    As you can see, I could go on all day about this, but I will spare you...

    The _Oxford_ dictionary definitely has French, Italian, German, and Russian counterparts, which I imagine are equally comprehensive. I'd be willing to wager they also offer comparable dictionaries in other languages. (Try looking here.) The dictionaries run somewhere in the vicinity of $45, and they are well worth the price.

    I have yet to find a truly comprehensive Brazilian Portuguese or Hebrew dictionary, but, then, I haven't really looked very hard. If anyone knows of one, let me know. (You can use heidipom@hotmail.com for now, as I will be switching ISPs shortly.)

    I hope that from this long-winded explanation you were able to derive some substantial content. :)

    --

    heidi

  4. CPen by mats · · Score: 3

    CPen (http://www.cpen.com) is very portable and very cool. It is big as a highlight pen and you scan a word in the same manner as you would with a highlighter. It comes with one dictionary but you can buy them also. It also beams text to and from PalmPilots and Laptops using IR. Also contains an address book.