In my previous article I explained about some free translation tools on the Internet that can aid language learners in their study and also explained some of the pros and cons of using the same. At the end of the article I am sure I had wetted your appetite for more questions and even assured you of the solution. This article will explain the tool that will offer the solutions to those questions such as:

1. Can I input foreign language characters such as Arabic, Hindi, Farsi or Urdu into a translation box for translation?

2. Can I translate to these languages from English?

2. Can I input characters from right to left (backwards) as in Arabic?

3. Can I spell check my input in various languages?

4. Can I refer dictionaries while doing my translation?

The tool I am going to discuss will do these and more.

IMTranslator 3.0

Welcome to the IMTranslator online, probably the most powerful language translator tool available on the Internet today and the most widely used. With its powerful features it seems almost indispensable when it comes to language study and like several other goodies online it comes absolutely free. Follow the link below to the site.

http://free-translator.com/translator1/

On the first glance the IMTranslator looks like any other translator but it is not so. It has one too many good features to offer. The IMTranslator offers a very big list of languages to translate. Click on the down-arrow button of the language translation drop-down list box (next to direction) to view the list of language pairs for which you can do translations. The people behind the IMTranslator have also gone the extra mile by offering translations from French to German, German to French and so on apart from the usual English to other languages and vice-versa pairs.  

Unique Features

Virtual Keyboard

The are plenty of good features. Take for instance the Keyboard button on the page located above the first text box titled Original text where you would enter text to be translated. Clicking this keyboard button instantly pops the image of a Virtual keyboard with keys in a small dialog. By default the keyboard displays the US keyboard. Click the down-arrow of the drop-down list inside this dialog to select from one of 30 foreign languages. Selecting a language will instantly convert the keys of the virtual keyboard into those in that language. The corresponding keys on your PC’s keyboard when used will also print the same characters displayed on the keys of the virtual keyboard. Now here’s your solution for question number 1. Simply type the keys on your keyboard corresponding to the characters of the foreign language (as seen on the virtual keyboard) and they begin to appear in the text box titled Original text. Alternatively you can also click the buttons of the virtual keyboard using your mouse to insert characters and letters into the Original text box. A language such as Arabic is automatically inserted from right to left. Note that by clicking the direction button you can even input Arabic letters and characters from left to right.

All you need to do next is choose the language into which this input text is to be translated to and click Translate. The translation appears in the Translated box.

Even if you do not wish to translate the text the Virtual Keyboard can be used to generate text in a chosen language that you can use elsewhere.

Spell Check

Need to check the spelling of words you input for translation? Just click the Spell All button next to the Keyboard button. The spell checker can spell check in eight languages. A new dialog opens to report errors in spelling and as with other spell checkers you can replace or ignore erroneous words.

Dictionary

Click the Dictionary button adjacent to the Spell Check button to access the online dictionary available for 20 language pairs and get help for words and phrases.

Checking with Reverse Translation

When doing a translation you can also simultaneously do a reverse translation i.e. you can translate the translated text back to its original text. This will be useful to check if the translation was done correctly. For this click the back checkbox before you click the Translate button. Along with the translated output in the Translated box another dialog opens displaying the reverse translated text that you can compare with the original text that you entered into the Original text box.

Transileration and Decode tools for Russian

As Russian alphabets are different from conventional English or English like alphabets in several other languages you can use the transileration facility provided to convert Russian characters into those in Latin. To use this feature click the Transilerate checkbox either before or after clicking the Translate button during a translation.

The decode functionality helps convert unreadable characters in Russian to readable ones. I haven’t had much success with this tool but if any of you have please post them here for the benefit of the others.

Other tools

The IMTranslator comes with some very handy tools such as print, e-mail and a good online help explaining thoroughly how to use the ImTranslator. You can send e-mail in a variety of languages too. The e-mail button invokes an e-mail sending program. Besides these the standard, cut, copy, past and delete functions are also present. 

The e-mail program may have some bugs as I wasn’t able to invoke it successfully. Readers who have had some luck please post comments here.

ImTranslator Add-in

You can also download the free ImTranslator plug-in to be used along with your Internet browser. All the functionality discussed here applies to the plug-in also. The plug-in is offered for Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers.

Conclusion

From the comments I have been reading for the Part 1 of this article I would like to iterate that translators however versatile they are must be used as aids only. I have already mentioned this in my previous article. Depending solely on them for your study may even impair your language learning process. Having mentioned that we must also be aware of the rapidly developing technologies in software and artificial intelligence that is continuously improving the quality of language recognition. This will only make translators of the future more accurate and reliable.

P.S – I am sorry to have mentioned that Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters can be inserted. However you could translate into these languages or copy and paste them from elsewhere into the Original text box and use them for translations. I also noticed that there is no translation provided for all languages in the Virtual Keyboard for e.g Hindi, Urdu, Farsi and others. However you could still use the keyboard, create the text in a language of your choice and use them in e-mail and other editors that support them. Also the back checkbox is for reverse translation and not for backward translation of languages such as Arabic.

(Concluded)