Automatically translating game texts, how?
Thread poster: rinko920
rinko920
rinko920
Sri Lanka
Oct 6, 2014

Hi, I have a huge load of text to translate and I need to find something that would translate it automatically and free.

Quality of translation doesn't matter

My dream would be find a plugin for Trados that uses Microsoft Translator and goes through all the segments automatically.

Is there something like that?


I've tried to copy paste it on google/bing but there's a limit
... See more
Hi, I have a huge load of text to translate and I need to find something that would translate it automatically and free.

Quality of translation doesn't matter

My dream would be find a plugin for Trados that uses Microsoft Translator and goes through all the segments automatically.

Is there something like that?


I've tried to copy paste it on google/bing but there's a limit of characters for both. It's something very amateurish, the texts are simple and I just want to be able to understand something roughly.


Thanks a lot!
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Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:39
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
Google Translator Toolkit? Oct 7, 2014

-> https://translate.google.com/toolkit

Good luck!

Michael


 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 08:39
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Cheeky! Oct 7, 2014

You register on a portal for professional translators and their clients to ask for advice on free translations? Just a wee bit cheeky, don't you think?

If you are seriously contemplating putting this game through a free machine translator you should be aware that the result will not simply be inelegant. I can understand that lack of elegant writing style may not be a problem for you. But how would gamers react to text t
... See more
You register on a portal for professional translators and their clients to ask for advice on free translations? Just a wee bit cheeky, don't you think?

If you are seriously contemplating putting this game through a free machine translator you should be aware that the result will not simply be inelegant. I can understand that lack of elegant writing style may not be a problem for you. But how would gamers react to text that is simply a bundle of words with no discernable meaning? There will be passages that are that bad. There will also be instances where MT will simply ignore a negative and change the sense entirely - they're more dangerous as gamers will believe what they're reading.

Whatever: it's your decision but don't be surprised that people here won't be enthusiastic about helping.
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:39
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Rinko Oct 7, 2014

rinko920 wrote:
I've tried to copy paste it on Google/Bing but there's a limit of characters for both.


If you use https://quest-app.appspot.com/ then the limit is less (i.e. you can translate more words at a time). Michael's suggestion of using Google Translate Toolkit (in which you upload files and then download the translations) is also a good idea.

If you're willing to pay a little bit of money (very little, in fact), you can use e.g. OmegaT to do the translation (one sentence at a time, while you read the content) and buy Google Translate credits. It's really, really cheap -- USD 0.05 per 1000 words (maximum 800 000 words per day).


 
Mulyadi Subali
Mulyadi Subali  Identity Verified
Indonesia
Local time: 15:39
Member
English to Indonesian
+ ...
Seconded Oct 7, 2014

Sheila Wilson wrote:

You register on a portal for professional translators and their clients to ask for advice on free translations? Just a wee bit cheeky, don't you think?


Haha. That was my first thought as well. I guess some people do think that translation is just replacing words. On the other hand, machine translation has made good progress as well that the result is pretty useful.


 
rinko920
rinko920
Sri Lanka
TOPIC STARTER
Machine translation Oct 7, 2014

Sheila Wilson wrote:

You register on a portal for professional translators and their clients to ask for advice on free translations? Just a wee bit cheeky, don't you think?

If you are seriously contemplating putting this game through a free machine translator you should be aware that the result will not simply be inelegant. I can understand that lack of elegant writing style may not be a problem for you. But how would gamers react to text that is simply a bundle of words with no discernable meaning? There will be passages that are that bad. There will also be instances where MT will simply ignore a negative and change the sense entirely - they're more dangerous as gamers will believe what they're reading.

Whatever: it's your decision but don't be surprised that people here won't be enthusiastic about helping.


hehe might be a bit cheeky, true, but I'm asking in the machine translator subforum so I guess that makes it fair enough, doesn't it? of course, a machine translator has nothing to do with a human translation, they are two different things (I speak two languages and can really see the difference), but mine is a specific case.

The text belongs to a free collaborative mod for a game, and it is rather simple. It's all about words and expressions like, "walk", "run", "door closed", "the king of england is dead", "the pope called for a new crusade" and things like that, but there are tens of thousands so that's why I requiere an automatic process where quality is not important (if they don't like the translation they can put some of their time into it too, and I can't spend money on a game I'll play for a few hours a week).

I think I found what I needed with PROMT translator.

Thanks again to you all for your help!

[Edited at 2014-10-07 09:07 GMT]

[Edited at 2014-10-07 09:07 GMT]

[Edited at 2014-10-07 09:08 GMT]


 
Andrea Halbritter
Andrea Halbritter  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 09:39
French to German
+ ...
Agree with Sheila Oct 7, 2014

I entirely agree with Sheila!

 
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:39
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
Don't really see the problem. Oct 7, 2014

rinko920 wrote:

‘Quality of translation doesn't matter’
+
‘the texts are simple and I just want to be able to understand something roughly.’

I don't know what he/she needs it for, but it doesn't exactly sound like he/she is going to be stealing any of our work in the process

@rinko920:

It would depend on the word count, but the Microsoft Translator API has a v
... See more
rinko920 wrote:

‘Quality of translation doesn't matter’
+
‘the texts are simple and I just want to be able to understand something roughly.’

I don't know what he/she needs it for, but it doesn't exactly sound like he/she is going to be stealing any of our work in the process

@rinko920:

It would depend on the word count, but the Microsoft Translator API has a very generous free monthly limit. This means that you could probably pre-translate your entire text in e.g. CafeTran or memoQ, using the Microsoft Translator plugin. Both CafeTran and memoQ have 1-month fully functional trials.

In memoQ, e.g., it is very easy to tell the program to use only Microsoft Translator (make sure to switch off any TMs, TBs etc.) to pre-translate an entire text in one fell swoop.

some_text

The same should be possible in CT, although I haven't tried it yet.

some_text

Dominique has a nice little video explaining how to get the ‘Client ID’ + ‘Client secret’ you need to get Microsoft Translator running in a CAT tool: http://wordfast.fi/blog/cat-tools/2012/05/01/new-microsoft-translator-api-with-client-id-and-client-secret/

I use the paid Google Translate API/plugin in CafeTran (for which I pay a very small monthly fee of around $10-20 a month, can't remember exactly), but have yet to be charged anything for use of the Microsoft Translator API/plugin.

Michael

[Edited at 2014-10-07 11:28 GMT]
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Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 09:39
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Cheeky Oct 8, 2014

Sheila Wilson wrote:
You register on a portal for professional translators and their clients to ask for advice on free translations? Just a wee bit cheeky, don't you think?

I entirely agree. This is like registering in a graphic arts portal and asking people how to cut a potato stamp.


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:39
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Disagree Oct 8, 2014

Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
Sheila Wilson wrote:
You register on a portal for professional translators and their clients to ask for advice on free translations? Just a wee bit cheeky, don't you think?

I entirely agree. This is like registering in a graphic arts portal and asking people how to cut a potato stamp.


I disagree. I had no problem giving the advice that I gave.


 


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Automatically translating game texts, how?






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