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Web Translator tries to conquer the language barrier
July 19, 1996
Web posted at: 7:15 p.m. EDTFrom Correspondent Dick Wilson
FAIRFAX, Virginia (CNN) -- The Internet is expanding at an explosive pace, but its future has been limited by an ancient communications problem: the language barrier.
Most Web sites are written in English, making growth of the Internet slower in Europe than in the United States. But Jim Lewis, head of the Globalink Company -- one of the largest in the translation business -- believes Globalink is on the brink of changing that.
"What we have provided is the technology at a very low price and good value so that people interactively can take information from their Netscape browser on the fly and translate an English page ... and get a very quick gist of the content and meaning in their native language," he says.
Lewis' product is called Web Translator and, while you wait, it can translate to and from English, German, French and Spanish.
The product was tested by language translation analyst John Frievalds, who writes about the industry and runs a marketing firm. Frievalds says Web Translator is "fun, fast and cheap," but not necessarily practical for business use. But, it's fine for the average Web surfer.
Translations are quick and general, sometimes missing a few of the subtleties of a slower and more careful human translation. But Globalink is working on that problem.
"I think those challenges are being overcome by more processing power, more information and more linguistic work being built into the product," Lewis says.
CNN tested Web Translator on its own Web site, converting it first to Spanish, then to German; then the network tried the reverse, translating a German newspaper into English. That process took about a minute and produced a translation that was readable, although not as clear as it could be.
Still, for less than $50, Web Translator is less expensive and far quicker than any human translator.
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