Until recently, translating from a foreign language was a must, as was the traditional paper dictionary. Now, thanks to the Internet , even the simplest translation tasks can be made easier, both conveniently and economically. It’s no longer necessary to buy a dictionary; simply having a little familiarity with the web is enough to access the many translation services available online.
Translation portals, in fact, offer a good, free service in almost all cases, except for some paid services available to professional translators, such as interpreters or translators. Here are the best online translation sites available on the web.
Google Translate
It’s the easiest to use, as well as the most popular. However, to use it, you need a good, if not advanced, knowledge of the target language. Syntactic and word-by-word correspondences are sometimes very imprecise, so this service is useful in most cases for providing a general idea of the meaning of the sentence you’re translating .
WordReference
This site allows you to translate phrases or words from numerous languages, from English to Spanish, from Romanian to Russian, as well as French, German, and Portuguese. The site features a highly advanced and fast browser search plugin, as well as a forum that provides users with additional content.
Promt
The advantage of this translation site is that it supports almost every existing language . It allows you to translate entire sentences, individual words, and phrases, and is easy and practical to use. It may not be among the most well-known and used sites, but for a good translation in a short time, it’s a more than valid portal.
Babelfish
It’s a translation service offered by Yahoo! and is widely used by users around the world to translate sentences accurately, although it’s not always accurate. If you need to do an amateur translation or for academic purposes, this site is a good starting point before moving on to a more professional portal.
Free Translator
Again, if you’re not too demanding on translation, this site might be for you. It supports many languages and allows you to translate both individual words and entire words, as well as the most common phrases in a foreign language, although it’s not immune to lexical inaccuracies.
World Lingo
It’s a fairly popular translation site on the web, allowing you to translate sentences into almost all major languages, including English, Italian, French, Spanish, and German. The only drawback: the translator is free for up to 500 words . After that, you’ll need to pay to continue using the service.
