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delete · Aug 17, 2005, 10:15 AM

I have a project where I need to translate from English to Japanese and Chinese then have the translation appear in characters. I can do the translation in Google, but how can I have the result appear as characters in a program such as Photoshop, Freehand or Quark?

Thanks.

CaptainHaddock · Aug 17, 2005, 10:52 AM

Adobe was smart enough to add Unicode support to Photoshop a few versions ago, so you can just paste in the text and it'll work. Applescript should be able to do the trick. You can combine Applescript, Automator, and Photoshop actions these days, I believe.

Quark's a piece of crap, I doubt there's any way to paste Japanese or Chinese into the English version of that program. Try InDesign instead.

wataru · Aug 17, 2005, 12:40 PM

If you're getting translations from Google, I hope they don't have to be accurate for whatever you're doing.

Chuckit · 01:39 PM

Originally Posted by CaptainHaddock

Quark's a piece of crap, I doubt there's any way to paste Japanese or Chinese into the English version of that program.

Yep. If I need Japanese in Quark, I just make an image file with the text and stick that in.

Incidentally: Man, Google translations do suck. As I test, I tried to translate the sentence "I'm sitting in a chair right now." It came out as "椅子の権利に今坐るI'm" — roughly, "The I'm that now sits in the chair of rights." It didn't even know "I'm." Changing it to "I am" made it translate that part, but the rest was the same weirdness.

delete · Aug 17, 2005, 01:25 PM

Well I was hoping they would be! I've found other sites also, but is there one that's recommended?

And thanks for the Photoshop tip. That's what I would like to use anyway.

Chuckit · Aug 17, 2005, 01:45 PM

Originally Posted by delete

Well I was hoping they would be! I've found other sites also, but is there one that's recommended?

Machine translation is iffy. Even on sites that are fairly accurate (meaning, say, convey the idea correctly more than 75 percent of the time), the translations are horribly unnatural — particularly between languages as different as English and Japanese. If you want good translations, talk to a good translator.

Millennium · Aug 17, 2005, 02:04 PM

I'm with Chuckit on this one. If you need a quality translation, you're going to need to talk to a pro. Even the best machine translators don't deal well with idioms.

delete · Aug 17, 2005, 02:24 PM

I was trying not to bother people about this, but I guess I'd rather be safe than say something stupid!

wataru · Aug 17, 2005, 03:37 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Incidentally: Man, Google translations do suck. As I test, I tried to translate the sentence "I'm sitting in a chair right now." It came out as "椅子の権利に今坐るI'm" — roughly, "The I'm that now sits in the chair of rights." It didn't even know "I'm." Changing it to "I am" made it translate that part, but the rest was the same weirdness.

Actually the translation was closer than that. It says "I now sit in the right(s) of chair(s)." It didn't understand the colloquialism "right now," or as you pointed out "I'm," but other than that it wasn't the worst I've ever seen.

To the OP: Definitely get a translator to look at it. Otherwise you might end up on Hanzi Smatter.

Chuckit · Aug 17, 2005, 03:59 PM

Whoa, you're right. I totally read that as "権利の椅子”. I think I'm starting to go cross-eyed from too much reading. That makes a lot more sense as a machine translation, though.

Great link, by the way.

Randman · Aug 17, 2005, 08:35 PM

If it's a few words, you could try the Translate widget for Dashboard. But remember to reverse translate it to check that the meaning is still the same. Then you could copy and paste into the files you want.

As others said, for anything of length, have it translated by a person.

CaptainHaddock · Aug 17, 2005, 08:53 PM

If your text isn't too long and you ask nice, chances are someone at the newsgroup sci.lang.translation will do it for you.

wataru · Aug 17, 2005, 09:52 PM

The translation widget isn't going to be much better than Google or Babelfish. I'd just try real hard to get a person to look at it.

Randman · Aug 17, 2005, 10:30 PM

If there's a uni in your town, contact the foreign language department, Might be able to get some students to work on it for a little less than a professional, if you are on a tight budget.

If it's for something professional, pay a professional.

wataru · Aug 17, 2005, 10:38 PM

That's also a good suggestion. I think the key is how much text you're looking at. I'd be willing to do it, maybe for free depending on the amount. Send me an email if you're interested.

delete · Aug 18, 2005, 12:23 AM

Actually it's very short. Only a few phrases. As it turns out my wife has a couple of Chinese business associates who can help me out.
I appreciate all the feedback.

wataru · Aug 18, 2005, 12:38 AM

Chinese and Japanese are not the same language. They share some aspects of their writing systems, but if you need Japanese text you need to find someone who speaks Japanese, not Chinese.

Martin Mraz · Aug 18, 2005, 04:23 AM

Originally Posted by wataru

Actually the translation was closer than that. It says "I now sit in the right(s) of chair(s)." It didn't understand the colloquialism "right now," or as you pointed out "I'm," but other than that it wasn't the worst I've ever seen.

To the OP: Definitely get a translator to look at it. Otherwise you might end up on Hanzi Smatter.

I do translations for a living, among other things, and the GOOD-FAST-CHEAP triangle applies to them, just like pretty well everything else. So given that a Google translation is very cheap (free) and very fast (near instantaneous) you would then have to expect the compromise to fall on the GOOD part.... :-)