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WinDi is based on interactive
translation This guarantees both quality results and excellent performance since the user fully controls the context of his/her translation! WinDi will help you save time and optimize the quality of your translations, while offering you reliable and directly usable translations. WinDi is NOT an automatic translator... That kind of very rough solution offers only draft translations that need to be thoroughly checked by the user, which implies that the user should have a perfect knowledge of both source and target languages to get good translations (!?). So, why then use an automatic translator?! This is why Language Dynamics' developments have turned towards another approach: interactive translation, a smart way to allow you to produce quality translations easily and immediately! For more details, read also our general information about translation tools and a warning against automatic translation. |
1. What is the aim of the WinDi Translation Help project?
WinDi
Translation Help is an all-in-one tool that provides :
- Translation help in
seven languages
- Help in understanding in seven languages
- Learning
foreign languages
These functions make it an indispensable Multilingual
Driver in Windows, especially in conjunction with communication tools such as the Internet,
for example!
2. What are the PC requirements?
We advise a Pentium with
32 Mbytes RAM and 50 Mbytes of hard disk.
3. From and to which language can WinDi be used?
WinDi is
multidirectional. The dictionaries and the sentence translation can be used from
any of the seven languages, and they provide the translation(s) of the
words/sentences in seven languages. The user interface is available in any of
the seven languages supported by WinDi.
4. Is it possible to
install fewer than 7 languages?
Yes, you can use the bilingual version.
5. Can
WinDi translate a whole text automatically?
No! WinDi is not an
automatic translator. WinDi offers several different translation help applications
based on interactivity, in order to provide you with reliable and efficient
tools (read also question 12). On one hand, the Translation Help 'Double
Editor' allows a source text to be pasted into a double editor and the text to be
'compiled', which means that WinDi retrieves, one at a time, the translation of
each word contained in the source text, in any of the 7 languages. When the
compilation is complete, the user just has to click on each word in the source
text to get its translation(s). The user can write the translation into the bottom
editor himself by pasting the words proposed by WinDi, in combination with
his/her grammatical knowledge of the target language. The aim of this
application is to integrate the dictionary database as much as possible into the
translation work, in order to provide immediate word-by-word translation and
help in understanding. On the other hand, WinDi Direct Translation (WDT) allows
translation of sentences from one's mother tongue into up to 6 other languages. This
application provides a series of sentences each with a well-defined grammatical
structure, in which each word is a 'variable' that can be easily modified. The
user chooses one of these sentences, and modifies each word contained in it, in
order to create a new sentence, completely controlled by the
application. The user has full control over the context of the translation. This
application provides a complete grammatical help allowing users to create
sentences in foreign languages that they don't know well or to familiarize
themselves with foreign languages, in a smooth and friendly way. This highly
interactive solution provides quality translations.
6. Is it
possible to use each module separately?
Yes. The different modules can
be called up and used separately. Each answers a different translation
need. Each WinDi module gives access to the other modules, through the 'menu'
icon or specific icons.
7. Where do the dictionaries come from?
The
dictionaries have been drawn up by teams of 7 native speakers working together, in
order to prevent any mistranslation between the seven languages.
This database has been more than 10 years in the making, and its preparation has involved more than 85 people.
8.
How old is this software?
The development of WinDi started end of
1989 and WinDi has been on the market since 1993. The
different modules have appeared one after the other, and Language Dynamics is continuing to develop this program in order to add more and more features to this very
complete range of translation tools.
9. How many words do the
dictionaries include? What kind of vocabulary is available?
The
dictionaries contain more than 40,000 words (not including the plurals and
feminines of the nouns, or the conjugated forms). In fact, there are 29,000
'general' words, and 11,000 'specialized' words, belonging to several fields,
namely finance, business, stock exchange, insurance, accounting, etc. Taking
into account the plurals and feminines, and the different variants proposed for
each verb, noun and adjective, there are more than 3,350,000 examples of translations
available per language. The 'basic' WinDi database cannot contain all the necessary
words belonging to hundreds of possible specialist fields of activity! The database would
be gigantic, and its price exorbitant. For your information, the French academy
has established that the French language contains 35,000 general words (technical
words not included). This makes WinDi an excellent general dictionary, whose aim
is to open communication gateways (see also question 20). If you wish to enlarge
the WinDi database, please refer to the User Manual, Chapter VI 'WinDi Tools -
encoding'.
10. Is it possible to enlarge the dictionaries?
Yes.
The WinDi Tools - Encoding module allows users to add their own vocabulary
into the WinDi Dictionaries, so that they can use it on-line. This encoding
module is very friendly. Users don't have to add their vocabulary in all
seven languages if they don't wish to.
11. Is it possible to share
the modifications and new words added to the database?
Yes. Users
can extract their modifications and give them to other WinDi users, thanks to a
program named WINDIARC.EXE. This program will prevent you from installing the same
modifications several times, by a 'matching' procedure.
12. How accurate is the sentence translation (WDT)?
The
sentence translation is very accurate, since it is based on a concept totally
different than automatic translators. WinDi Direct Translation (WDT) offers
several groups of pre-structured sentences, in which each word is a variable.
WDT manages all the grammatical issues of these sentences. This very interactive
method for creating sentences guarantees a reliable result that users can use in
their mail, for example. However, WinDi cannot translate everything, and,
unfortunately, mistakes can appear. They are usually linked to agreement
problems similar to spelling mistakes (especially German declensions, which are
very difficult to manage because they depend so heavily on the context of a
sentence). They often are complex grammatical issues inherent to the target
language's difficulties. These mistakes do not prevent the sentences translated
by WinDi being understood by your recipient. Your recipient, reading these
translations in his/her mother tongue, will probably notice the mistakes, but
he/she will easily understand what you mean, because words are placed in an
order following the 'logic' of the target language. Little mistakes in your text
will be easily corrected by your recipient, who will appreciate your
communication effort. If you wish to check possible spelling mistakes in your
translations, you can use the 'spell check' functions included in your
word processor, as long as this function is available in the target
language needed. To do so, paste the sentences translated by WinDi into your
word processor by means of the 'Copy-Paste' functions of the clipboard. Then,
call up your word processor's 'spell check' function.
What about
idioms in WDT?
Idioms should be avoided when creating a sentence in WDT. There are some
expressions and idioms already present in the WinDi Dictionaries, however the dictionaries
are constructed to mainly contain words.
13. What about 'ambiguous' words?
Words
that can have several different meanings are followed by an explanation between
brackets. This prevents the user from choosing the wrong meaning, according to
his/her particular context. The translations will be correct, as long as the
context of each word has been carefully chosen by the user of the WinDi
software... Example: 'the Gettysburg address' refers to Lincoln's famous
speech (1863), and not to the address of a house in Pennsylvania! In order to
help you in your translation task, WinDi Dictionary also gives contextual
information for words that have several different meanings.
14. What is going
to happen if I write a sentence containing a grammatical mistake in WDT?
WDT
will prevent you making grammatical mistakes. The making of a new sentence
is completely steered by the software. The agreements in gender and number are
automatically made, the verbs are immediately conjugated for the right person,
etc.
15. What about spell check?
When creating a sentence
in WDT, you can't make a spelling mistake, because you copy and paste each word
from the dictionaries. If you want to use the WinDi multilingual lexicons as
spelling checkers, you can run the program named
'SPELLHLP.EXE'. This program allows the integration of the WinDi lexicons into
a wordprocessor. Beware, no grammatical functions are included in this tool. If
you need more help, you should install complete grammatical checkers, for
the language you need, available on the market.
16. Which French,
English, Spanish, Dutch, German, ... has been used?
French : from
France, not Canada. It includes some Belgian and
Swiss expressions, but these are presented as 'regionalisms' (reg.). English:
from England, but includes many Americanisms, followed by (Am.). Spanish:
from Spain, but includes many Latin Americanisms, followed by (LAm.). Dutch: from the Netherlands. The Flemish words (Belgium) are presented as
'regionalisms' (reg.) or (Vl.). German: from Germany. Portuguese: mainly
from Portugal, but includes many Brazilian words, followed by (Br.)
17.
Can a translation made with WinDi be imported into a word processor?
Yes.
All the WinDi applications have a 'Copy' and a 'Paste' icon, which allows you to
copy a word or a sentence on to the clipboard, and then to paste it into another
application.
18. Is WinDi useful when learning a language?
Yes.
WinDi provides reliable tools that can be used when learning a foreign language.
The conjugation tool and the dictionaries are obvious helps, but the WinDi Direct
Translation (WDT) module is extremely interesting for creating sentences, comparing
the structures of different languages, and seeing what happens to the sentences, etc. It
is much more 'lively' than a grammar book, and it allows the students to study
particular grammatical rules, just by 'testing' them in real time!
19.
Will WinDi speed up my translations? How?
By providing 'on-line' tools,
WinDi speeds up the way you translate, and increases the quality of your
translations. You won't have to look for the dictionary before looking up a
word. All WinDi tools are integrated very well into Windows applications like
E-mail, etc. The user just has to click on a word to be given its translation(s),
he/she can very easily call up the sentences for 'grammatical' help, he/she can
call up the conjugation... All he/she needs is at his/her
fingertips.
20. How can I extend the possibilities of the sentence
translation program, WinDi Direct Translation?
WDT proposes a limited
number of grammatical structures. But you can greatly enlarge the possibilities
of this application thanks to the WinDi Tools - Encoding program.
Let's
assume you wish to use the word 'high-speed train' in a translation such
as 'You will take the high-speed train', for example. The word 'high-speed
train' is not in WinDi, because it is a technical word. By encoding it as a
noun in the encoding program in the different languages (for example, in French
'Train à grande vitesse', in German 'Hochgeschwindigkeitszug',
etc.), you will be able to use this compound noun as a single 'block'
(complement or subject). The sentence above becomes a simple sentence
'Subject + Verb + Complement' in all languages.
By adding your
specific vocabulary (scientific, medical, technical...) to WinDi, you will enable
yourself and your colleagues to translate many types of sentences in your
context. The complexity of translating will be brought back to simple
grammatical structures well supported by WinDi. Moreover, the vocabulary used by
your company is often already available on paper. You just have to type it into
WinDi Tools - Encoding to arm yourself for translation in your specialist context.
Here is a concrete example of this theory.
The sentence*
below, given in 7 languages, is very interesting...
[D] jede Termineinlage in eine Sparbank wird vom Staat bis
einen Betrag von $1000 garantiert
[E] cada depósito a plazo en un
banco de ahorro es garantizado por el Estado hasta una suma de $1000
[F]
chaque dépôt à terme dans une banque d'épargne est
garanti par l'Etat jusqu'à un montant de $1000
[enG] each term
deposit in a savings bank is guaranteed by the State up to a total amount of
$1000
[I] ogni deposito a termine in una cassa di risparmio è
garantito dallo Stato fino a un ammontare di $1000
[NL] elk deposito op
termijn in een spaarbank wordt door de Staat tot een bedrag van $1000
gegarandeerd
[P] cada depósito a prazo num banco de aforro é
garantido pelo Estado até uma soma de $1000
This sentence
looks complicated, and normally could not be supported 'as is' in WinDi
Direct Translation. In order to use WinDi in this case, the 'compound' nouns
were encoded as 'single' nouns. The words 'term deposit' and
'savings bank' are in the WinDi database as
'single' nouns in seven languages, which means they can easily be included
as 'text blocks' in a supported structure. Thanks to this, the sentence
translation application 'WDT' can be more widely exploited, and its
possibilities are only limited by the user's imagination and the possibility of
saying things in different ways.
* The structure of this sentence
corresponds to group 1.3 'Passive voice', last proposed structure allowing
a complement to be added directly after the subject. Here is the way we translated
this sentence: the subject 'term deposit' and the Variant 'each'
were chosen. The complement 'savings bank' was selected with
the Variant 'a'. Preposition 'in' was added afterwards in
front of this complement. The verb 'to guarantee' was chosen from
the verbs available (conjugation in the passive voice and for the right person is
automatic). The complement following the verb was chosen by the same
process, etc. For the '$1000' complement, the 'text block: an
amount of XYZ' was encoded as a single noun in the WinDi database. 'XYZ'
was manually replaced by '$1000' in the word processor.
By
using WinDi Direct Translation this way, you will greatly enhance its
possibilities!
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