Free online translation tools
As my French rapidly improves I find myself needing help translating more and more complicated phrases, words, and expressions. Below is a list of links to a variety of online translators that are free. Some can only provide simple translations and some can provide more complex translations. Some have a pay version that is more robust. You should be able to find one that suits your needs.
Try reading some of the news articles in French here on this site. Then try using the online translators for the words and expressions you don’t know. See if they work for you.
http://www.emailaddresses.com/online_translation.htm
http://lifehacker.biz/articles/free-online-translation-tools/
http://www.imtranslator.net/translator.asp
http://websearch.about.com/od/internetresearch/a/translate.htm
I am also told that http://www.wordreference.com/fr is great but it redirects me to Yahoo.fr. Not sure what it means but I’ll update the link when I can get it to work. Okay, it works now.
Do you have a favorite online translation tool? Let me know in the comments.
I’ve been using wordreference.com for quite a while. Sometimes it’s rather slow or won’t work at all. I noticed when we were in France, that many times when I typed in dot com it would take me to dot fr.
My friend was just explaining to me that she uses the forums on wordreference.com to get the meanings of expressions. You can do a search for a word and then check the forums for how it is used in an expression. I haven’t tried it but she is a translator and says when she cannot figure out a translation she checks there.