Universal Translator Deluxe

by LANGUAGEFORCE

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00002S946
• Item model number: UNIT98
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 10, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 1.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,911 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Universal Translator Deluxe (UTD) is a breakthrough in global communications. With the push of a button or a voice command, you can now communicate with the world. So sophisticated it's used by the U.S.Government, the UT Deluxe includes 33 languages. The new interface makes it easy enough for a child to use. Pull information off the Internet or another application by dragging and dropping text, then translate it with a single click. As you speak into your microphone or headset, your words appear on the screen. You can also hear your foreign e-mail spoken to you in English. When you translate formatting, links, and graphics, they remain intact as your original text. This new version even supports the newest in Web-page creation, including dynamic HTML, XML, and cascading sheets.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Largely disappointing, a few people might find it useful, February 2, 2000

By 

tropic_of_criticism - See all my reviews

This review is from: Universal Translator Deluxe (CD-ROM)

To say I was disappointed with this purchase would be an understatement. I bought it in the full belief that it would actually help me to translate e-mail and websites as the packaging said. Unfortunately, the packaging is entirely misleading and should be mostly disregarded. You will not be able to successfully translate full sentences with anything approaching ease. This is mostly a word-by-word translator, and significant knowledge of the target language--and its grammar--is required to be able to pull off reasonable translations.

I must say that I found the Spanish translations competent, but this was because I know Spanish and therefore could make informed choices when the program prompted me for word choice.

And this is where the strength of the program is. It does actually help you if you know your target language well enough to multiple guess your way through a series of choices.

But is that really a strength? It seems to me that the goal of any product which calls itself 'Universal Translator' should be to fully automate the translation process, not give you a multiple choice quiz about a language you don't know.

Now I've read reviews which apologize for this by saying that all computer language translation packages make draft translations only, and that you really should have someone who knows the language to write the final form. Perhaps so. But this product depends so much on user knowledge of the language that you need someone with those language skills long before the draft stage.

Truth is, there are other packages which, despite making what might be called 'draft translations', at least translate whole sentences. The problem whith packages like that is that they don't translate nearly so many languages, nor are they cheap. Indeed, there are many languages this product translates that aren't translated by anyone else.

This product is thus recommendable in a limited way. If you basically know a langauge, but can't trust yourself to translate lengthy documents, this product might eventually steer you to an acceptable translation. Also, if you really need to translate into Slovak or one of the other lesser-known languages, this may be your only hope.

Still, I can't help remembering what language teachers have told me in the past: never translate using a dictionary as your primary reference because you'll end up making crazy word choices and not even know it. Be warned: for all its packaging hype, Universal Translator is just an interactive dictionary.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Pathetic, May 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Universal Translator Deluxe (CD-ROM)

I own a small motel and bought this software to use to give our Spanish speaking employees instructions. When I could get the software to work the employees could not understand the Spanish translations. It also was not compatable with the reservation software that I use and blew it off my computer. I had to reload the reservation software after loading the language translator. Then when I shut the computer down at night it blew my reservation software off again. The technical support was absolutely useless. The only thing they would offer was a program for over $200 that they said would work better. When I tried to get my money back I was told to forget it. Don't buy this unless you have money to throw into the trash.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars translation of slavic language, April 3, 2000

By 

Donald W. Miklovic (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Universal Translator Deluxe (CD-ROM)

I found this software pathetic for use with the Slavic languages. Some of the most basic words such as 'good' in Slovak could not be translated. In Czech, 'good' tranlated into 'best'. Totally forget translation of sentences, it cannot do single words. For some reason translation into Russian would show up as Spanish. The speech synthesis was so bad it was actually funny. It apparently uses English phonetics no matter what language is being translated. This results is completely unrecognizable speech. If I hadn't received a full refund from COMPUSA, I would be very upset right now. By the way, don't expect any sympathy from the developer.