Language Engineering Power Translator Pro 8 review

Power Translator Pro 8 consists of four separate programs: LogoTrans translates as you type; FileTrans translates text files in their entirety.

TransIt translates a sentence or two and then inserts the translation into another application. It is designed to work with instant messaging applications, with a complementary program - TransView - translating the arriving messages. Finally, the Translation Mirror translates the primary window of whatever application you're using, for instance a document in Word or a Web page in Internet Explorer. The package translates between English and French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German and Russian.

To translate a file, you'll need to save it as either text or HTML.

Power Translator converted phrases into the target language in a manner that obscures the original meaning far less than, say, Google's translation function. For example, translating the following paragraph from a news story, both translators made errors, but Google's were far more basic.

"Mercenaries make the second-largest occupation force in Iraq, outnumbering even the biggest US ally, Britain. About 15,000 personnel from private military firms (PMFs) are operating in Iraq, according to the estimation of Peter Singer, author of "Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry".

With Google, Peter Singer, became "le chanteur de Peter". And while Google's stab at 'outnumbering' - depassant - was more accurate than Power Translator's strange infinitive 'surpasser', Google inexplicably added a full stop before mentioning 'allie, Grande-Bretagne'. Power Translator's results were far truer to the meaning of the original.

There is one online service that produces translations of a similar quality, however, and that's Language Engineering's own site. In fact, you can download all the programs in Power Translator for free. You don't get the specialist legal or medical dictionaries, though, and the free programs have fewer features, and need to access an online server to use its dictionaries. That said, their results were identical to those from Power Translator, and they can translate many more languages.

If you need to read lots of foreign-language documents, Power Translator will save you lots of hassle. Unless you need the technical dictionaries, though, the free software will probably do you just as well.

Author: Paul Hales