Category Archives: Translation Tools

Apimac introduces translation dictionaries for iPhone and iPod

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on November 5, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Translation Tools

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iPhone and iPod Touch users who are still looking for a good language translation app might just have a pleasant surprise coming at them. iPhone and iPod touch has got a new line of translation dictionaries from Apimac, the company which has already developed award-winning software for the Mac, including a series of very popular translation dictionaries.

The dictionary apps for iPhone/iPod are available in English - German, English – Italian, and English - Spanish. Each comes with all the tools required for searching words, as well as phrases in an up-to-date dictionary that also includes grammatical notes, as well as a phrase book with thousands of English phrases and their translations.

These language translation dictionaries include other features like a business dictionary that help users while composing business letters, sending e-mails, and even in making professional phone calls. The dictionaries are designed in a very user friendly manner and guide the user to find useful information rather than unhelpful or useless stuff. Most of the information used by the app is stored locally in the iPhone or iPod, hence an internet connection is not required to make it work. An internet connection is only required when the user needs to do online translation or reference/image search.

Apimac’s language translation apps are compatible with the iPhone firmware v2.2.1 or higher and are available for $3 at the App Store.

Yet another innovative iPhone translation app

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on October 29, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Translation Tools

Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !


Fotozio, LLC has launched a free iPhone photo translator application called PicTranslator. Although there are now many reasonable to good quality language translation apps for the iPhone available from the iTunes Store, PicTranslator is different as it uses the iPhone camera and turns it into a point-and-shoot translator. Options available to users at present include thumbing through phrasebooks or translation apps that require typing in foreign language phrases in order to get a translation. PicTranslator with its innovative approach has all the trappings of turning into a must-have application for frequent travelers which they can use to readily translate maps, road signs, menus, and the like.

The fact that PicTranslator is very easy to use is an added benefit. All one needs to do is launch the application to take a picture of the text that is required to be translated. Thereafter the image might require some cropping so that the text is placed within the given parameters before hitting the translate button. The image is then sent off to be translated which can take some time during which PicTranslator throws up interesting trivia about the area. In order to get accurate results one needs to ensure a clear picture of the text, for if it is blurry or taken at an angle or say, strong light is reflecting on it then the translation might not be accurate.

Free version of PicTranslator includes one langauge chosen by the user. Other languages can be purchased as in-app purchases. Individually they are priced $ 0.99 and $1.99, while the whole bunch costs $2.99 and includes Spanish, French, German, Russian, Italian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Norwegian Swedish, Turkish, and Portuguese. Some of these languages come with audio pronunciation facility. The developers will be adding more languages in future, and of course the app would get better with more people using it.

Introducing Skype Translator

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on October 16, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Translation News, Translation Tools

Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !


Skype is one of the most commonly used programs for instant messaging, as well as chatting over the Internet and rightfully so, it has proved to be a simple, well designed and extremely reliable program which is free for all practical purposes. Since it is so popular worldwide, it’s obvious that Skype is used by people who speak a variety of languages. A large number of such users speak with others users who may not speak and understand their language and thus face a communication barrier. But this barrier is now a thing of the past with the recent release of an automatic translation tool for Skype called the Skype Translator.

The Skype Translator works only with Windows operating system and also requires Microsoft .net Framework 2.0. It is a plug-in that uses Google Translator to produce automatic translations for conversations in Skype. Google Translator itself does not need any introduction as it is one of the most widely used tools for automatic translation. Though it may not turn out perfect translations, it works fairly well especially considering the fact that it’s free. A very useful feature of the Google Translator is its api which can be integrated with other web services and even software to provide them with translation options.

After installation the Skype Translator require access rights in order to work. These rights can be allowed or refused in the first run of the plug in. After the rights have been given, a user can chat with his/her contacts using an external interface which is a separate window that contains translation options using which incoming and outgoing messages can be translated. When a user sends a message after enabling the translation option, the translated message will appear in the receiver’s window. One can chat in this external window without using the Skype interface. You can download the Skype Translator here.

Smartphones - The New Age Language Translation Assistants

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on September 28, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Translation News, Translation Tools

Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !


Smartphones are becoming better, packing in more utilities and selling more with every passing day. They are being increasingly relied upon by business travelers for a variety of purposes. Business travelers frequently travel to foreign countries where they face communication problems due to lack of understanding of the local language. Based upon this knowledge mobile phone manufacturers are developing increasingly sophisticated mobile phone applications that provide instant language translation. These applications are poised to replace translation guides used by travelers.

Nokia and RIM have developed a number of language translation apps which are available through their respective application stores. These language translation tools facilitate multi-lingual translation through text, speech, instant messaging, SMS, email and also in chat environments. Thus they provide business travelers with a comprehensive set of language translation solutions. Moreover unlike the traditional translation guides, these apps are much more efficient and easier to carry, and many of them also keep updating and “learning” according to usage.

The latest development in this area is a translation application that reads and translates text provided in pictures, for example the image of a food menu or road sign. What the application does is extract the text from the picture with the help of optical character recognition technology and then translates it to the targeted language. Both Nokia and RIM’s Blackberry have come up with such applications. While the Nokia product is called Wee and Blackberry’s is named Interlecta Translator.

Translate your Wordpress blog instantly

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on September 14, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Translation Tools

Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !


There’s a new plugin for Wordpress for those who would like to translate their blogs in a jiffy and for free. It’s called Transposh and is very simple to use. After you have installed Transposh you will find several small flags belonging to different countries (you can select them on your own) below the RSS subscription logo. Towards the upper left will be you default language flag. Now all you have to do to translate your blog is to click the flag of a country and presto you’ll have the translation in front of you!

Now for the not so desirable part, since Transposh is an automatic translation tool, the quality of translation would not be very good. It would be awkward to read and may sometimes be erroneous as well. So if you chose to use Transposh, do take stock of the pros and cons which could affect the standing of your blog.

A new online dictionary that means business!

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on September 10, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Translation Tools

Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !


Are you one of those people who are frequently looking up online dictionary sites like dictionary.com? Maybe your work requires you to do that or you simply like finding out the meanings of words you didn’t know about or new meanings of various known words. As far as I am concerned, I consider myself a word junkie, I can spends several hours at a go simply looking for meanings of various words, their roots and their histories. If you find that weird, I’ll suggest that you try it out sometime. Or maybe you could start right away with Wordnik.

Wordnik is a cool new dictionary that has the potential to give existing heavyweight online dictionary sites a run for their money. Wordnik goes much beyond being a simple dictionary by providing users with a lot more than various examples of a given word. Along with regular features that can be found in standard dictionaries like word definition and pronunciation, Wordnik also provides synonyms and antonyms, etymology of the given word and even statistics related to the word’s usage. Users registered with Wordnik can even add their own lists of related words and synonyms.

One of the best features of Wordnik is that it displays the queried word in the context one is looking for; it combs through a vast database of web sites, archives of news papers and magazines, blog posts and even books that are out-of-copyright (from Project Gutenberg) and recent Twitter messages where the word has been used!

At present the Wordnik’s database covers nearly 1.7 million words, the company is now working building apps for smartphones.

Automatic language translator for Windows Mobile

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on September 1, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Translation Tools, Uncategorized

Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !


I have news for all you windows mobile users who thought that I was focusing a lot on iPhone applications. Its about an excellent new translation application that has been released for Windows Mobile 6.x touch screen phones.

The WCI Translator can produce translations for all language pairs that can be formed between English, French, German and Spanish. Users can enter free form sentences and expect good quality translation as the application analyzes the sentence structure and then translates according to the rules of each language. One can translate up to 250 characters at one go.

The application has other nifty features like the ability to save/recall translated text, copy/paste functions, options for setting preferred languages and font sizes. WCI translator supports a vast and comprehensive vocabulary and is probably the only mobile translator that does not rely upon an Internet connection for translating complete sentences. It requires about 25 MB of storage space which is hardly a lot for today’s phones that come with several GBs of memory.

Instant Arabic Translation with Blackberry

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on August 28, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Translation Tools

Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !


English speakers who desire to have working knowledge of the Arabic language for example in conversing with Arabic clients or business partners should check out a Spoken Arabic translator that has been developed by Sakhr’s Software.

This is a wonderful app designed for Blackberry phones which enables smooth communication between English and Arabic speakers through real time language translation. The Spoken Arabic translator is based upon natural language processing technology for Arabic which allows for accurate translation.

The application is very simple to use. It can be installed in any Blackberry phone. The users can speak in either Arabic or English and the app translates it immediately, the use r can view the transcript in either language and also play it out loud for the opposite party. Its like having a reliable English-Arabic translation expert right in your pocket.

Check out the website of Sakhr Sofware for more information.

Albanian translation app for the iPhone

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on August 26, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Albanian Translation, Translation Languages, Translation Tools

Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !


I discovered yet another iPhone translation app, it’s only meant for Albanian - English translation and produces pretty satisfying results. It’s called iLanguage and allows the user to translate from Albanian to English and vice-versa quickly and easily. It would specially be helpful to business people and travelers.

Operating iLanguage is as the cliche goes ‘child’s play’, all you have to do is type in a phrase either in English or Albanian and hit enter to be presented with the translated version of the phrase in authentic lettering.
Other helpful features include a quickly searchable history of recent translations and no limits to how much one can translate at one go, whether it is one word or a whole paragraph. Check out http://arcticgerbil.com for more details.

Excellent Subtitle Translation Applications

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on August 17, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Translation Tools

Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !


The famous and delightful television series, “Friends”, is not only popular in the United States where it was produced but also in other countries which are not only far away in terms of distance from the United States but also in terms of language and culture. Similarly Japanese, Chinese and Iranian movies are quite popular in English speaking countries, especially in the United States.

This cross cultural popularity of videos has created a great demand for subtitle translation. There are many good sites on the Internet which serve as databases for subtitles. But avid watchers of global movies, television series and the like have quite often found themselves in situations where they cannot find the required subtitles in their native languages. If you are one of them dear reader, then you can kiss this problem goodbye as listed below are three of the best subtitles translators available on the Internet.

Open Subtitle Translator
Open Subtitle Translator automatically translates subtitle (srt) files line by line with the help of Google language tools.

Subtitles Translator
Subtitles Translator translates subtitles only in MicroDVD format that is ({start_frame}{end_frame}subtitles_line). The program does not support automatic translation, and one has to translate manually translate every line.

Gnome Subtitles
Gnome Subtitles works for the GNOME desktop. It supports subtitle translation, editing and synchronization for most of the common text-based subtitle formats.