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AltaVista Babel Fish Translation enables you to translate short passages of text or entire Web sites among 19 pairs of languages.

As an automatic translator, Babel Fish works best when the text you wish to translate uses proper grammar. Slang, misspelled words, poorly placed punctuation and complex or lengthy sentences can all cause a page to be translated incorrectly. Expect Babel Fish to allow you to grasp the general intent of the original, not to produce a polished translation.

To Translate Your Own Text

  1. Type or paste text into the "Translate a block of text" text box.
  2. Select the language pair from the list (for example, English to French).
  3. Click the Translate button.
  4. Babel Fish translates text up to about 150 words at a time
To enter special characters
To enter accented or Russian characters, click the World Keyboard link. An on-screen "virtual keyboard" will appear.

You can add characters to the text box by either clicking on the keys or typing with your physical keyboard. The World Keyboard link turns your physical keyboard into the international keyboard of your choice.

To return your physical keyboard to normal operation, just click the close box on the virtual keyboard. After you close the keyboard, press Control-k to use it again.

Tips:

  • To enter accents, click first the accent and then the character it appears with. To type capital letters, click the Shift key and then the letter.

  • Be sure your Windows control panel keyboard is set to English. The World Keyboard does not run on Macintosh computers.

    To Translate a Web Page

    1. Enter the address of the page you wish to translate into the "Translate a Web page" text box.
    2. Select the language pair from the list (for example, German to English).
    3. Click the Translate button.
    4. Babel Fish translates individual Web pages up to 10K. When you click a link, the linked page is also automatically translated.

    Troubleshooting  (FAQ)
    Occasionally, a Web page you want to translate is on a slow server or the server has a poor network connection. This interferes with Babel Fish translation and can result in an error. Check the Web page by going to the Web address without using Babel Fish. If the original page is displayed very slowly or not at all, the problem is with the Web site you are trying to read. Try translating it another time. If you receive an error message again, Please Let Us Know.

    If you have copied a text passage that exceeds the 150-word limit, both the translation and the original text you pasted into the translation box will be cut off. Copy and paste in small sections and translate each section separately.


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