Software of the Month Club 1997 February

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TM ENTENTE ENGLISH TO ANY LANGUAGE (ENGLISH TO FRENCH SHAREWARE, VERSION 1.10) French Introduction and Instructions are found at the end of this document. A la fin de ce document il y a une introduction en francais aussi bien que le mode d'emploi. SHAREWARE FENTENT is shareware -- you may use it free for 60 days, but then you must register to continue. The order form is ORDER.ENT C'est un shareware - on pourrait l'utiliser gratuitement pendant soixante jours, mais il faudrait s'y abonner et l'acheter si l'usage etait pour une periode plus longue. Le bon de commande est FRORDER.ENT; pour s'abonner ou acheter Entente en d'autres langues ou Entente II ( entre n'importe quelles deux langues, ex. Francais-russe ou francais-Coreen), il faudrait simplement taper PRINT FRORDER.ENT On pourrait donner une copie de FENTENT a n'importe qui on veut, mais on ne pourrait pas la vendre. Si vous voulez vous pouvez demanderjusqu'a $4 americain pour les frais de la copie. Conversational Translator Program for use on IBM compatible personal computers, with both parties present. Requirements: MS DOS 3.0 or better, disk drive, EGA or VGA display, one megabyte RAM, and at least 480K of first 640K of memory available. Also works on HP-100/200LX palmtops. Capability: Two way translation between English and any of the following languages: (French only for this shareware version) Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Serbo-Croatian (Yugoslavian). TM ENTENTE ENGLISH TO ANY LANGUAGE Manual and Program copyright: Robert Alan Mole July, 1994, 1995 TRANSLATOR COVERAGE OO XXXXXXXXXXX OO OO XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX X XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X XXXXX X OOXXXXXXXXXXXX X X XXXXXXXX XX OXXXX XXX XX XXXXXXXXX X OOX XXXXXX XXXXX X X XXXXX XXX X XXX XX XX XXXXXX X X X=Covered; Y=Not Covered (The above is the best ASCII world map I can draw. In the regular manual, a good map appears here, showing coverage of all the world, except Scandinavia, the Lowlands, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Thailand and Burma. And Greenland.) Translator world coverage is shown shaded. All of the Americas, Australia, and most of Europe and CIS Asia are covered. North Africa is covered by Arabic, and the rest of Africa by Arabic or a covered European language--usually the "national language", required to unite several tribes into one country. In Asia, Korea is covered, and Japan and China are covered by phonetic alphabet systems which have been universally taught for decades in the schools of Japan and Taiwan, and on the mainland for the past six years. Countries not yet covered are mostly in the small to medium population range, such as the Scandinavian countries. In a sense these areas are covered too, for travelers universally remark upon what superb linguists those people are. There is a reason for this: there are four million speakers of Danish, and four hundred million of English. There are hundreds of times as many books and papers in English (or German, French or Russian) as in Danish. Danes wishing to access all this must become superbly proficient in a major foreign language -- and they do. Likewise, proficiency in at least one covered language is very widespread in the other countries not yet included. And in this sense the translator covers the whole earth. TABLE OF CONTENTS SECTION I Introduction Disclaimer Warranty Discussion of Disclaimer Installation Marking Keyboard Program Mechanics Program Rules Practice Sentences A Session with Entente SECTION II Discussion of Rules Circumlocution Complexities Unfortunate Phrases Importance of Translator Conclusion Extra Words & Foreign Fonts SECTION III Characteristics and Pronunciation Rules (for all languages, alphabetically) (But only for French in the shareware version) Comparison of Shareware Version to Others Distribution Rules for Shareware SECTION IV Introductions and Rules (in every foreign language, alphabetically) (Only rules for French in the Shareware version) SECTION V Examples of Translations (for all languages, alphabetically) Francais French Introduction & Instrucions are found at the end of this document. A la fin de ce document il y a une introduction en francais aussi bien que le mode d'emploi. SECTION I ALL NECESSARY INSTRUCTIONS NOTE: This is a thick manual, but do not be dismayed. You only need to read the first eleven pages, and most of that is light reading. The program is easy to use, and there are hardly any instructions to learn. IF YOU'RE IN A HURRY... You MUST read "Translator Instructions" (one page), and you really should read "Practice Sentences". Then type "FENT" and go. ENTER makes it translate, TAB switches to French input, and ESC stops it. If you also read "A Session Using Entente" it will save time in the long run. INTRODUCTION Entente is a controversial product: a conversational translator program. Conventional wisdom has it that a translator Cannot Be Done. I believe that this program shows that it Can Be Done, at a level that allows reasonable and useful communication on any topic. Now you can find out whether you agree, by trying the program in its shareware version, and at no risk at all. I hope you will like the program and will be helped by it. But if not, you may simply delete the program and never pay a cent for it. The translator works without most grammatical rules. It uses no plurals, for we understand the same thing from 3 MAN ROB BANK YESTERDAY as "3 men robbed it then." It does not conjugate verbs, or use tenses or moods, for we understand PERHAPS THEY ROB IT YESTERDAY just as well as "It may be that they might have robbed it then." So in using the program, you use only the infinitive (to go, to be, to see, but without the "to".) You write HE GO TOMORROW. I BE IN DENVER. When you use an ambiguous word, the program asks you to tell it which meaning you want. So when you type I LIKE -- it beeps and prints : "Please select the number of the meaning you want: 1. I like candy. 2. John is like Susan. " You type a "1" and continue , and the translation is made correctly. The rest of the rules are given later, but essentially this is all there is to it. You will use this program on you office desktop computer to converse with someone whose language you do not know. Or you may carry it with you in a notebook computer when you travel abroad. To initiate conversation, you give the foreigner a short set of rules (in his language) to read for a minute. You type in your questions, hit ENTER to translate instantly, and then he can respond. You will find you can say almost anything and be understood, and his response will "sound funny" but be understandable too. For example, if you're traveling on a Eurail Pass and want to find cheap transportation to a mountain you want to climb, ten miles outside of town, you'll say: I HAVE NO CAR BUT I WANT TO CLIMB SPITZENBERG MOUNTAIN. I WANT RENT BICYCLE TO GO THERE. BE THERE A BICYCLE SHOP IN TOWN? In response you'll get: NO, BICYCLE STORE 2 YEAR BEFORE CLOSE. I POSSESS BICYCLE. YOU WANT IT RENT? And while this is far from perfect, it gets the job done. Just like speaking a foreign language, communicating this way is challenging and amusing. But unlike learning French, which takes four years, learning to use this program takes only minutes. And the natives will have no trouble with your accent, and you'll be able to talk to Russians, Portuguese, Hungarians, Egyptians, and all sorts of people who cannot understand either English or French. As with trying to converse in a foreign language, you cannot expect every single thing to make sense, and you must use some effort and intuition to figure out what the foreigner means. When you -- or the program -- do not know a word, you must use your initiative to circumlocute -- to talk around-- the roadblock: THIS FOOD BE SUPERB (the computer clicks softly to show it doesn't know that last word, so you continue with a substitute) VERY GOOD! The Spanish translation is then: ESTO ALMIENTO SER SUPERB MUY BUENO! The Spaniard disregards the untranslated word, and understands the rest. In the rare case when he does not, he'll just ask for a clarification. The program works, and it lets you talk to people and say almost anything. It takes some effort, but it beats the alternative of riding for hours in a train compartment with attractive, interesting and friendly foreigners -- to whom you cannot even say "Hello". I hope you have great adventures with it. (Please write me with questions, suggestions, and words you'd like to have included in the vocabulary. I cannot think of everything, but I can listen to users and make improvements where they want them.) ============================================================================= DISCLAIMER You must realize that this translator is imperfect, and will occasionally give a false, misleading or inappropriate translation. It is dangerous and foolish to stake a large sum of money, or your life, or anything else of great value, on anything it says. ============================================================================= WARRANTY Entente Corporation warrants that this program, if properly installed and operated on a computer for which it was designed, will perform substantially in accordance with this User's Manual . Furthermore, if the purchaser is dissatisfied with the program for any reason, Entente Corp. will refund his or her purchase payment in full, upon return of the program and manual, for up to one year from the date of purchase. (Inapplicable to shareware version, but does apply after you register and pay for Entente.) This warranty is in lieu of all other warranties, express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of marketability and fitness for a particular purpose. Entente Corporation's liability shall, in any event, be limited to the purchase price of the program and shall not include any consequential damages, such as misunderstandings or loss or destruction of data, resulting from the use of the program. ABOUT THE DISCLAIMER I believe this is a good and useful program, whose output will usually be understood. I think you will ordinarily be far ahead to use it, especially if you don't speak the language at all. But all use of language, even your own, carries a risk of misunderstanding; and translation to a foreign tongue is an art. Even experts often make egregious mistakes. Around 1930, the first transatlantic telephone service was opened. But in the early days a lot of valuable time was wasted by British and American operators who couldn't understand each other's English! The London operator would ask "Are you through New York?" (meaning "Have you gotten through to your party?") and the American would understand "Are you through talking?" and respond "No, London, we've only just been connected." Then there would be a long pause as everyone tried to figure out the crazy people on the other side of the ocean... In 1977, President Jimmy Carter went to Poland and made a speech. But his State Department translator suffered stage fright, and when Carter said "As I left America I thought about how much I loved the Polish people.", the translator spoke Polish meaning "When I left America, never to return, I thought how I wanted-to-go-to-bed-with the Polish people." The Poles giggled, and probably tell American President jokes to this day. In 1940, the Nazis published a propaganda magazine called Signal, using the best translators they could find. Prussian efficiency notwithstanding, it was full of howlers. The allies called the Stuka a "dive bomber"; the Germans called it a "diving fighter"; but one Signal caption read "A divine fighter wings towards its target..." Though actually it looked more fiendish. If such diverse symbols of efficiency as Jimmy Carter, The Telephone Company, and Adolph Hitler all suffer from errors in translation, then you must not expect perfection from this little program! Nevertheless, it's surprising how often you will be understood. INSTALLATION You must have an IBM PC compatible computer running MS DOS 3.0 or higher, with at least one megabyte of memory and at least 480K of the lower 640k free (which means that TSR programs such as background spelling checkers, many of which are autoloaded by CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, may have to be temporarily disabled.) [The Shareware Version may run on lower DOS versions, and will run on HP100/200LX palmtops. Versions of all Entente programs are available for the HP.] PC Computers: To run the program from the floppy disk, put the disk in the A or B drive and switch to that drive by typing A: or B: (enter).The prompt will change to A:>. Type FENT (Enter) and the translator program starts automatically. To copy to a hard drive and run from there, first make a directory to hold it. Type MKDIR \ENT (Enter), then CD ENT (Enter). Next put the program floppy disk in the A or B drive. Type COPY A:*.* /V (Enter)(or COPY B: *.*/V (Enter) if it's in B, of course.) Now, whenever you want to use it, go to the ENT directory (CD \ENT), type FENT (Enter), and the translator will start automatically. If you get the message "insufficient memory", it means you have autoloaded other programs that use too much of the lower memory. In this case, you must remove or disable some of the drivers or background programs loaded by CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. HP100/200LX: For small memories, copy to the HP only the files starting with "F". eg. COPY F*.* . This way you avoid copying the manual, README, etc. Set working RAM to about 556k.(640 is OK on 2 meg machines.) From initial screen press & S menu O S (shows volume contrast & memory) , Tab down to Memory, set with cursor keys, Enter and Enter again to restart. Quit the System Manager by pressing & MENU A T (Enter). [Quitting via D or the DOS icon won't work -- it leaves the System Manager running, taking up 200k needed to run Entente, and you'll get a "cannot execute" message]. Type FENT (Enter) to start the program. "File not found" or "Input past end of file" really mean memory problems -- there wasn't room to unpack the file fully or at all. You may have to remove some stored memos or stop some TSR programs. It has been reported that a popular TSR program (MAGNIFY) makes the HP "lock up" if you type very very fast in Entente. (You must then press Ctrl + "uparrow" (shift key) + "On" to restart. Press N for no when it asks if you want to reinitialize (wipe clean!) the C: drive.) Better yet, don't run the programs together! MARKING THE KEYBOARD YOU DO NOT NEED TO MARK THE KEYBOARD FOR THE SHAREWARE VERSION! For "C-cedilla" simply use "C". USING THE PROGRAM -- THE MECHANICS FOR THE SHAREWARE VERSION type FENT (enter). The program loads, displays a welcome screen, and asks you to choose a specialty vocabulary. Choose an appropriate one, say BUSINESS (type 1 and (ENTER)) . It now asks if you want to print out the conversation (on paper,using a printer). Answer Y (yes) or N (no). For European languages, printout on any printer will work (but no characters will be accented.) For non-Latin fonts (e.g.. Arabic, Russian etc.) your printer must be an Epson 24-pin or compatible. To check for compatibility, it's easiest just to try it. If only lower case English letters come out, your printer isn't compatible. See your manual; some printers can be adjusted. Next it asks if you want to save the conversation to a file. This is useful if you can send files to foreign friends, via the Internet or modem connection. You would respond Y (for Yes) and make up a short file name at the prompt. Then you would write a message or letter, press Enter to translate, and end the session with ESC (ESCape), and the file would contain your original input and the translation. You could then send it as you would any other file, to your friend. (Because the translations are funny, you would not write a formal letter to the President of Peru in this way!!) The program takes a few seconds to read the vocabulary. Then it tells you to type in your sentence in English. Do that (for example: HELLO. WHAT BE YOUR NAME?). Press ENTER, and the sentence translates instantly. Now the other person wants to reply -- in French. Press TAB and the program is ready for French input (you can tell because the screen changes color and the "Type your sentence" message appears in French.) TAB toggles back and forth between English and foreign input. Suppose you have chosen the automobile specialty vocabulary but you don't know what words are in it, and wonder whether "windshield-wiper is one word, two words, or hyphenated. (many specialty words are hyphenated.) Then press F2, and the words are displayed alphabetically. Look up your word, and return to the main program by pressing any key. Note that you always type in all caps. Small letters will not translate! The program sets the CAPS LOCK automatically to the right setting, but if something goes wrong, just press CAPS LOCK to get back to all caps. You can backspace, but only with the back-arrow key above ENTER. The "cursor keys" do not work and cause strange letters to print. You can also display the rules (e.g. no plurals) at any time by pressing F1. If you're on the English entry screen, the rules are displayed in English; from the foreign screen, they're in the foreign language. To get back to the main program, keep pressing ENTER until all pages have been displayed and it returns. This display erases anything you've already typed, so it's natural to use this feature at the very start of a session -- usually to allow a foreign stranger to read the rules. Section IV of this manual contains these rules too ( and only the manual has the rules for Russian, Arabic, and Chinese (Taiwan alphabet), ). (This small shareware manual has only French, of course.) It is better to show the foreigner the manual if it is available; the format is neater and there is a translation of the introduction too. To stop the program and return to DOS, press Esc (the key in the upper left corner of the keyboard), at either the English or foreign prompt. TRANSLATOR INSTRUCTIONS 1.) Type in your sentences. If you use an ambiguous word the program beeps and asks which sense you mean (1. I like candy 2. Joe looks like John). Type "1" or "2" and continue. 2.) It translates automatically when you hit the "ENTER" key. You can then type another sentence. Or you can press the "TAB" key to switch to foreign input (so the foreigner can reply). 3.) Use only one verb form--the infinitive (as in to walk, to talk, to go, to be) -- but forget the "to". Say: John be tall, he go to Peru, I walk over hill, etc. 4.) Use all singular Nouns: 3 man rob bank yesterday, all baby cry in night, most american think that...(you can use they or them or any other pronoun though). 5.) Do not use possessives--not John's car but car of John. As usual you can use the possessive pronouns -- His car, her car, my car, your car, or their car are all OK. (NOTE: for languages other than French, you would see the section on Language Peculiarities, and possibly use other forms.) 6.) Any sentence with Please in it is a polite command, regardless of word order: US YOU GIVE PASSPORT, PLEASE. (In various languages, word order varies, but this rule takes care of that -- for command always say PLEASE). 7.) Any sentence with a question mark is a question, regardless of word order: "Time be 5:00?" "LIKE WINE YOU?" 8.) Do not use complex, multi word verbs. I LEAVE FOR CHILE TOMORROW, not "I will leave"," I should have left", "I am leaving", or "Do I leave?" And, "PERHAPS I GO", not "I may go". You can say: I WANT TO GO, I CAN GO, I MUST GO, I SEE HIM GO -- just stick to the present tense. 9.) Just after you type a word it doesn't know, the computer emits a low, discreet "click". This feature lets you backspace to correct the spelling, remove the "s" from the end of a word you've accidentally pluralized(remember that it doesn't know plurals), or try a similar, perhaps more common word. (Use the back-arrow key above the "ENTER" to backspace. The cursor keys do not work!) Later, look at the translation. Some of the words may be the same as those you typed. This may be OK--the words may be proper names or you may have said I LIVE IN DENVER and it translated YO VIVIR EN DENVER. DENVER and FRED JONES can't be translated, so unknown words are repeated unchanged. The foreigner can probably read such words with no trouble. (NOTE: For languages such as Arabic that don't use the Latin alphabet you should point to the untranslated word and pronounce it clearly. It may also be helpful to carry a small map, and point to the place.) But sometimes you'll suspect the word didn't translate because the program didn't know it, and you should try a more common word, or explain it (and when this happens to you, point to the word you don't understand, or ask what it means.) CAN YOU FLY A GLIDER? PODER UD VOLER UN GLIDER? GLIDER MEAN AIRPLANE WITHOUT ENGINE. GLIDER IMPORTAR AVION SIN MOTOR. PRACTICE SENTENCES Above are normal English sentences. Below, the right way to say them with the translator, and explanations. Cover the answers, read the sentence, compose your sentence and then compare it with the answer. 1. Give your passport to me. PLEASE, YOU GIVE YOUR PASSPORT TO ME. (Other languages form commands with special verb endings and word order, but everyone recognizes that a sentence with "Please" is a polite command. Say "you give" instead of just "give" because you should always state the subject. 2. John sees the car. JOHN SEE THE CAR. ("to see" is the infinitive. We do not conjugate the verb (I see, you see, he sees), because there are too many forms (veo, veas, vea, vemos veis, vein for the present alone in Spanish), and the computer cannot hold them all. The computer will not translate "sees", but will translate "see".) 3. John has seen the car before. JOHN SEE THE CAR BEFORE. (The helping verb "have" is not used in many languages, and makes no inherent sense. Would you understand "John possesses seen the car" ? 4. I see six cows and two deer. I SEE 6 COW AND 2 DEER. (No plurals; they won't translate. Use the Arabic numerals -- do not spell out numbers.) 5. By the time they get here, he will have gone. HE GO BEFORE THEY ARRIVE. (Simplify. Avoid "get" except in the sense of "obtain". And, "will have gone" is a very complex conjugation, and conjugations are not allowed.) 6. She will leave tomorrow. SHE LEAVE TOMORROW. ("Will" may or may not translate. Some languages have a similar future tense (Spanish says "She go to leave tomorrow.") and some don't. But "SHE LEAVE TOMORROW" is perfectly clear to everyone. As long as you state the time, you don't need tenses.) 7. If I were you, I would drown myself. IMAGINE THAT I BE YOU. THEN I DROWN MYSELF. ("Were" is the subjunctive tense (or rather "mood"). Subjunctive is used to indicate an imaginary, hypothetical condition -- obviously I cannot really be you. ) But the subjunctive is unnecessary -- if you want someone to imagine something, just tell them to.) 8. It costs $6000. IT COST $6000. (No conjugations; "cost" not "costs"!) 9. I was in West Berlin in 1968. Wanting to visit East Berlin, I went to Checkpoint Charlie, and gave my passport to the VOPOS... TIME BE 1968. I BE IN WEST BERLIN. I WANT TO VISIT EAST BERLIN, SO I GO TO CHECKPOINT CHARLIE AND GIVE MY PASSPORT TO THE VOPOS... ( Again, no need for tenses, just tell the time and tell the story. Berlin, Charlie, and Vopos won't translate, of course. They just appear in their original form. You can't translate a word like "Berlin".) 10. Two hours later, the Vopos said they might have given my passport to another American, so I could go in without a passport... TWO HOUR LATER, VOPO SAY "PERHAPS WE GIVE YOUR PASSPORT TO OTHER AMERICAN, BY ACCIDENT. SO YOU CAN GO IN WITHOUT PASSPORT." YES, I THINK, BUT CAN I EVER LEAVE AGAIN? (You can tell quite a complicated story this way-- and the translator can be a real help if some clumsy border guard loses your passport and you have to check into a West Berlin hotel and explain your lack of documentation. Otherwise, things like this can be dicey!) 11. That touring sedan has fantastic, sensuous lines. THAT CAR BE VERY PRETTY or IT HAVE BEAUTIFUL SHAPE. (Simplify! You cannot expect a 3500 word vocabulary to have words like "sensuous", and a foreign language may not use "lines" in the sense of "form", and anyway, "lines" is plural! Try to speak as simply and directly as possible. Incidentally, note that BE should be used instead of IS, AM, or ARE. "TO BE" is the infinitive. But because so many people forget this, IS, AM and ARE will translate-- I've made that accommodation to human nature. But this is the only verb you can conjugate, and only in the present -- WAS and WERE will not translate.) 12. I left my glasses in the store. I LEAVE MY GLASSES IN THE STORE YESTERDAY. (Some plural words - glasses, pants, etc.-- are included, because there really is no singular. Nobody ever bought one pant!) A SESSION USING ENTENTE John turns on the computer and types SEL. A menu appears; he must select which language he wants to translate to. Spanish is number 16, so he types 16 (enter) and sees the files copied for a moment.(John doesn't do this for the shareware version, he just types FENT and (enter.) Now he sees the welcoming screen and the request that he choose which specialty vocabulary he wants. "Business" is (1), so he types 1 (enter). He is told that the short delay occurs because the computer is reading the vocabulary. Then: A blue screen, with a bar at the top telling him everything he can do at this point: Type in English, hit Enter to translate what he has typed, hit Tab to switch to Spanish input (so the Spaniard can reply) or hit ESC to leave the program. John wants to say "Hello. I like your car". He types HELLO. I LIKE... The machine beeps. John ignores it and tries to type more, but with each keystroke there is another annoying beep! John looks up at the author of the program (conveniently standing by his shoulder) and says "What is wrong? Is it broken? Why does it keep beeping?" The author responds: It is beeping to get your attention. This means you must look at the screen. John looks, and sees: HELLO. I LIKE ________________________________________________________________ | Please choose a sense, type a number | | | | 1. I LIKE CANDY | | | | 2. JOHN IS LIKE SUSAN | |______________________________________________________________| Oh, says John, a huge white sign has appeared, asking a question. But why, and what must I do? The author explains: you have used an ambiguous word: LIKE, and the program needs to know which meaning you want. It must know this before it can go on, so now you must read the big white sign and type a 1 or 2 (just the number, not Enter on this one) John reads the sign and decides he wants meaning 1. He types a "1" and the sign disappears. John finishes his sentence. Wanting to translate it, he presses "Enter" and the translation appears- HOLA. YO GUSTAR SU COCHE Juana, John's Spanish friend, reads the translator and understands it. (Gustar really means "pleases", so "your car pleases me" is theoretically correct, but GUSTAR can be used in either way (as "like" or "pleases") in closely related Portuguese, and Spaniards really understand it too, despite what American Spanish teachers say.) Juana tries to type a reply: UD PODER... but the computer clicks after every word, to show it does not know these words. Help! Why? Because, says the author, you have not hit TAB to switch to Spanish input. The computer does not know UD or PODER because they are not English words. Hit TAB to go to Spanish. Juana hits TAB and the screen turns green ( not changing languages is an easy mistake to make so the screens are different colors to give you the strongest possible indication) And instructions in Spanish appear at the top! She types UD PODER COMPRAR LE ... BEEP! Juana wonders what the trouble may be. The author explains that every time it beeps, it means an ambiguous word has been used and you must choose a meaning before continuing ( LE can mean "him" "her" or "it") Juana types 3 for "it" and continues. The translation is: YOU CAN BUY IT BY $50000. John notes that "by" is confusing (that's right, prepositions are confusing) but he understands the sentence. John start to type his reply, but the computer clicks at him after each word. And, he notes, the screen is green and there are Spanish instructions at the top! TAB turns it blue and English instructions appear. John types his reply THIS PRICE BE EXCESSIVE! but it clicks after "excessive". Uh-oh, the computer did not know that word. Well, it is a bit uncommon. John erases it (using the back-arrow at the upper right of the main keyboard, not the cursor arrows that don't work!) He goes to replace it with TOO MUCH MONEY, but after TOO the computer beeps! John is confused, but then he remembers: I must have used an ambiguous word! I must look at the screen! And there in a big white box is: ________________________________________________________________ | "TOO" IN WHICH SENSE? TYPE A NUMBER: | | | | 1. I CAN GO TOO (ALSO) | | | | 2. TOO MUCH | |_______________________________________________________________| John types 2 and continues. (John seems slow to learn about the BEEP, but it really happens this way.) The translation is ESTO PRECIO SER DEMASIADO MUCHO DINERO. Which is understood. Eventually, Juana needs to use her computer for other things again, and wonders "How do I get out of this program? I want to get back to my spreadsheet work." Fortunately the Spanish instructions at the top of "her" green screen tell her "to exit press ESC", so she presses the ESC key (at the upper left of the keyboard) and the program stops, and the DOS prompt (c:> ) reappears. SECTION II DETAILS NOTE: To use the translator it is not necessary to read further. You should turn to Section 3 and read about the special features of the particular language to which you will be translating, but that's all you have to do. The material following this page discusses why the program works and how well, what odd complexities you may in encounter in foreign lands (they write six-thousand as 6.000 instead of 6,000), and similar issues. All this is important, interesting, and sometimes funny, but it is not required that you read it to use the program. The translator is easy to use and you have already read everything you need. DISCUSSION OF THE RULES Some people may be concerned by the "lack of grammar" in the program. Why do we have grammar in normal language, if we don't need it? Won't there be terrible misunderstandings without plurals and conjugations? I will address these concerns now. First, we have grammar because it allows us to understand more easily, rearrange our sentences into poetic forms (Thee I love) and catch errors in case we don't hear very well. Suppose we're a'hollerin' between mountain -tops, and I say "The man robbed the bank yesterday", but you don't hear the first word very well. "Was that 'the' or 'three'?", you ask. Well, you reason, if it was "three" then the second word would have been "men", but the second word was "man", so the first has to have been "the". Thus you correctly restore the lost data. Of course, we do this unconsciously, but grammar does help.(1) But with the translator we seldom have a noise problem, and we are not composing poetry or elegant speeches. We just want to get simple messages across, and we can do without most grammar. But doesn't the lack of plurals lead to confusion? No. Some English words don't even have plurals, or rather the plural and singular words are the same, and no one even notices. Can you think which words those are? Well, it's a herd of cows but a flock of sheep (not sheeps!) and one elk or six elk; it's six moose (not mooses), five deer, two quail and a school of fish. If "fishes" is used at all it's to imply different kinds of fish. Generally, this rule seems to apply to the game animals that were hunted in ancient Europe. But we say I walk, you walk, and he, she or it walks. What if we didn't conjugate the verbs? Well, some we don't. Can anyone think of a verb that's the same for everyone? Sure, everyone can: I can; you can; he, she or it can; we can; everybody can. The only one who "cans" is Susan, who cans peaches. Have you ever noticed this before? Have you lain awake nights, worrying about the problem? No? Very well then, so much for the idea that verbs must have different endings. (I must, you must, she must and they must; but nothing, not even verbs, "musts", let alone musted or will must.) 1.) Beckmann, Petr, Natural Languages As Error Correcting Codes, Lingua, Vol 28, #3, 1971. CIRCUMLOCUTION With only a thousand words, it is possible to say almost anything in a foreign language. The program has all of 3,500 so there is usually a word for what you want. The trouble is, "usually" may be there but not "commonly", "typically", "generally", or "ordinarily". When the program doesn't know a word it gives a little "click" to alert you, as you type the space after the word. When this happens for a word that ought to translate (and remember that words like LONDON and PATRICIA aren't supposed to translate), then you should try a similar word that may be more common. Thus I may type I ORDINARILY (click) USUALLY GO ON HOLIDAYS (click) VACATION IN AUGUST. The translation will be YO ORDINARILY USUALMENTE IR EN HOLIDAYS VACACIONES EN AUGUSTO. The foreigner will ignore the untranslated words and understand those that did translate. (You should likewise ignore untranslated words, though you may glance at them to see if they're cognates that tell you more about exactly what he was trying to say. Thus if you get HAVE YOU OAKUS PINUS BIG TREE IN YOUR GARDEN? you'll probably realize he was asking about oaks and pines. Circumlocution means "talking around" a word you don't know. So when you type I HAVE A CELLULAR PHONE, and it clicks on CELLULAR, think for a moment and type CELLULAR PHONE MEAN RADIO PHONE, and continue. Circumlocution is a useful art (especially for speaking a foreign language you know only partially), and with some practice you can become very good. You may also draw a quick sketch to clarify many things, and it may be a good idea to carry a small map so you can point out Peoria, and a small dictionary or a credit-card-translator (a small word translating calculator, usually with a vocabulary of 6,000 to 100,000 words) as a supplement to the program. But for most matters, the program will let you say everything you want, most of the time. Incidentally, the reason you cannot use credit-card-translators instead of this program is that they only display a word or two at a time, and they offer no help at all with ambiguous words. So when you type I LIKE YOU they're likely to translate it as I AS YOU, which , worse than being incomprehensible, is misleading. (Imagine telling the lovely young Parisiane "I LIKE YOU" and having her receive "JE COMME VOUS"! "Sacre bleu!" she thinks, "This man must mean 'I am like you', but anyone can see this is not so! He is tall and dark and masculine, while I am a cute little blond fille. We say 'Vive la difference!', but zis idiot does not know la difference! Pfuii!" Oh, catastrophe! Oh, heartbreak!) Credit card translators do sometimes have stock phrases, such as "Thank you very much", and "Bellhop, take the bags to the car" (as though bellhops ever did anything else, or had to be told this!), but these phrases take forever to find and offer no flexibility at all. To be sure, translator cards are better than nothing , even if used only for nouns. If you type CHEESE and show someone the translation, she's likely to show you a shop that sells the stuff, and HELP RAPE POLICE is likely to get fast action. But with the program, you can fairly easily say "HELP-- MY HUSBAND FALL AND HURT HEAD WHILE WE WALK ON TRAIL. HE HAVE BAD INJURY . YOU CALL AMBULANCE PLEASE! HE BE 3 KM UP THE HILL, ON RIGHT SIDE OF ROAD UNDER A BIG TREE. A CAR CAN GO 1 KM BUT A JEEP CAN GO ALL THE WAY. CAN YOU FIND A JEEP?" Whereas there is no hope of conveying such detailed information using a calculator-translator. COMPLEXITIES: CASE In the sentence "I give the book to her," "I" is the subject, "the book" is the object (or direct object, or "accusative") and "her" is the indirect object (or "dative") Many languages put a special ending on every noun to show what it is. English did that with some of its pronouns, adding "m" or "r" to show the word was an object instead of a subject. He-Him, They-Them, She-Her and probably I-Me (the spelling just got a little confused). This technique allows the word order to be arranged any way at all and the sentence will still be understandable. English still does this in poetry sometimes. "Thee" is the old object form of "You," and "Thee I love" was the title of a song a while back. We knew this meant "I love you". "Her he sees" would be understood as "He sees her," and we know from the case structure that it doesn't mean "She sees him." The pronouns "you" and "it" are the same for every case, so we tend to dislike sentences like "It hits It," and even poets would avoid use of the phrase "It it hits." We dislike these sentences because "They sound bad," and they sound bad because they're ambiguous. They're ambiguous because "it" is defective in English, "defective" in that it lacks a separate word for the objective case. But other languages are not defective, and speakers of those tongues are free to arrange their sentences any-which-way, and still be clear. Moreover, our defective pronouns have to be translated as some case, and it is always the subject case. As a result, "I see you," sounds as bad in the German translation as "I see he" would sound in English. They still understand, but it's harder for them. The translator instructions warn them of these problems and tell them not to expect case endings on nouns, and not to use object-case endings on the nouns they write (so they don't write "The dog bite the catm.") The instructions work, and fortunately all the modern romance languages do not decline (put case endings on) the nouns anyway. So Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese will work well with this scheme, while German, Polish, Russian and other languages have to strain more. A worse problem is the indirect-object pronouns. All other languages have different pronouns to indicate the direct or indirect object. English usually uses a preposition (to, for, from, etc.) to indicate the indirect object: "I give the book to her." We can use word order instead: "I give her the book." If a father "gives away the bride to the groom," we can say "He gives him her," and be correct. If "HIMQ" meant "him, indirect object" we could say, "He gives himq her," or "He himq her gives," or "Himq her he gives," and still be understood. A German or Russian can say those things. But HIMQ doesn't exist in English. So the Russian phrase "Her himq he gives," will result in, "Her him he gives," in the English translation, and will not be understood by the American. (The instructions request the Russian to use standard word order, which helps, and fortunately the problem doesn't arise often) When the American types "I give him her," "her" translates to Russian as the direct object and the resulting sentence sounds wrong. There's no perfect analogy, but it sounds like "I give her he." (So never use the construction "I give him her" but rather "I give her to him," ) Technically, it can be even worse. "I take her him," might well be interpreted all wrong by the German as, "I take her and him." But no one ever says this. In practice we always use prepositions, so the translations are wrong but understandable. To deal with this problem, I have included special words in the vocabulary -- pronouns with the final letter doubled: hee, herr, youu, itt, mee, etc. If you type one of these (YOUU, for example) you are presented with a full choice of meanings (you, subject singular and plural; you, direct object singular and plural, and you, indirect object singular and plural). You choose the meaning and it translates exactly. Or, if you remember your Shakespearean or biblical English, you can instead use "Thou (you singular subject), "Ye " (you plural subject), and "Thee (you singular object) instead of making the choice every time. I do not truly recommend either technique, because most of the time they are unnecessary. In actual practice almost every sentence you type will be understandable. When problems do arise it is because of words that aren't in the vocabulary, not because of defective pronouns. But the options are there if you wish to use them. MORE COMPLEXITIES NUMBERS: In many places the use of the comma and dot are reversed from American practice. That is, where Americans write "six thousand" as "6,000", others write it as "6.000". And where we write "four and fifty hundredths" as "4.50", they write "4,50." These meanings will usually be clear from context -- a Mercedes with a price of "90.000DM" probably costs 90,000 marks ($60,000) and not 90 marks. In case of confusion, write the number "90000" which is always clear, or write "4 and 50/100" instead of using the decimal point. And "90 thousand" will also translate right. Hundred, thousand and million are the same in every language, but "billion" is not! An American billion is a thousand million (10^9) and a British billion is a million-million, (10^12), a thousand times more and equal to an American trillion! What a British trillion may be I lack the courage to ask. The British Broadcasting Corporation, in its overseas short-wave programs, gets around the problem by avoiding "billion" entirely, referring instead to "thousand-millions". This is clumsy but clear, and I recommend it. Or, you can write it out as 1,000,000,000 or use scientific notation (10^9). PERHAPS vs. MAY To express uncertainty, use "perhaps" or "maybe" instead of "may". "It may rain tomorrow" may be understood in some languages, but "Maybe it rain then" will be understood in all. And if you receive "IT CAN RAIN TOMORROW", be aware that they probably mean "IT MAY RAIN". (See, it's confusing, isn't it? Therefore, always use "maybe".) LONGEST, STRONGEST, BORINGEST The program has some common words like "good", "better" and "best", but in general you should form such comparisons by "good", "more good" and "most good". Although an unabridged English dictionary may list it, even English does not really contain "interestinger", and most languages contain no such words at all. WHEN and IF German and English sometimes say "when", when the real meaning is "if" or "whenever". In many languages the sentence "When you see the flash (of an atomic bomb) , duck and cover." implies that this will happen, and when it does you must react this way, whereas the real meaning is "If you see the flash...". Therefore, try to say "if" , if that's what you mean, and say "when" only for things that are certain to happen ("When it gets dark, go to bed.") A and THE These words are notoriously hard to define, and do not exist in every language. "A" means one, any , or any one. (I saw a cat -- I don't know which one.) "The" implies a specific one, often the one just mentioned. A good synonym is "this". (I saw a cat. The cat had two tails!) Slavic languages -Russian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian etc.-- denote non-specificity by the lack of any modifier, and specificity by "this" (I saw cat. This cat had two tails.) Many languages have two "the's"-- the-singular and the-plural (the cat = el gato; the cats = los gatos.) In the program , the English "the" always translates as the-singular, which may sometimes cause misunderstandings. It's too bad English doesn't have a plural "the" -- something like "thes" or "these". Hmm--we do have "these", which does look very suspiciously like the remnant of the-plural, though of course it's supposed to be the plural of "this" (which has practically the same meaning as "the" anyway!) So for clarity you may wish to use it that way, and say I SEE 6 MAN YESTERDAY. THESE MAN WEAR COCONUT ON THEIR HEAD. And what of a plural "a"? A non-specific plural article? There is none, of course, but we and most other peoples say "some" instead: "I see a deer" or "I see some deer." Both imply non-specific animals. UNFORTUNATE PHRASES The program contains no curse words. This is an effort at a safety feature, for there are parts of the world where they will execute you for blasphemy, and it's best not to discuss religion at all. For things that must be said "I need to go to the bathroom" and "I want to go to bed with you" are understood everywhere with about the same impact as in English. Although it's safest to be polite, I have included a few expletives : DARN, OH DEAR, and WOW. Sometimes you have to say something. All languages have words that are "clean" in most contexts but impolite in some combinations. In English, "There is a crack in the wall." -- is perfectly polite but "John let a crack in the church wall go unrepaired." will draw laughter. The translator knows nothing of this, and may occasionally produce interesting translations. If this happens, you are forbidden to laugh!! You may only smile, and just a little. Seriously, look for the meaning the foreigner intended, and don't get in any fights. So when you type in "PLEASE LET ME DRIVE.", and some German laughs uproariously at the translation, do not be upset, but blame the stupid program, whose feelings cannot be hurt. These double-entendres are rare in actual use. So far, the only good one came from a Portuguese lady who described a family relationship in words that translated "I AM COUSIN OF THE JOHN" (For foreigners unfamiliar with American slang, "The John" is a synonym for "The toilet", and "My cousin is a toilet." makes the listener curious about her uncles and aunts!) THE IMPORTANCE OF A UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR When computers were first invented, it was thought that universal, cheap translation would be one of their greatest boons. Translation was tried, but soon failed because of ambiguity. Given documents and no help from human authors, the programs could not guess the intended sense of words with several meanings, and so produced ludicrous mistakes. In one famous instance, the sentence "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" was translated into Russian and the Russian back to English, yielding the following translation : "The wine is good but the meat is rotten". There were so many such problems that programmers decided language translation was impossible, at least until computers had human-like knowledge of the world, which will take a very long time indeed. And this remains the case -- for documents. But for conversation, where the human with his world knowledge can be asked which sense he means, translation is possible. This program proves it. The program was written by one person--myself-- and fourteen languages were compiled with the help of native speakers, over just a two year period. The program now works well, but we can make certain obvious improvements. We can definitely have a much larger vocabulary with plurals and perhaps a simple past and future tense for each verb. The cost of machine recognition of spoken words is falling, so within a decade we will be able to talk to a palm top computer and have it speak the translation to the foreigner. We can have this for every language on Earth; it is only necessary to compile them. So within ten years, based only on current technology and obvious extensions of this program, we will have tiny boxes that let us talk to anyone in the world. And this is important. It is important because it is a wonderful improvement on the present situation. We now spend a full school year (or four years with language as one of four subjects) to learn a single language. Half the students can barely speak it on graduation day, and hardly anyone is much good after four or five years, far less when they visit Europe after retirement. I seriously think that the program in its present state is as good as the average student in a fourth year class, and much better than he is twenty years later. And it is that good not for just one language, but now for fourteen and soon for a hundred. This gives the user fantastic power, greater than the greatest linguist who ever lived (and spoke twenty nine languages, though probably less than a thousand words of most.) No one has ever been able to speak a hundred languages pretty well, not even with inborn genius and a lifetime of dedication. More than this, this same program allows all the foreigners to communicate with one another, translating from Hungarian to Portuguese and Arabic to Russian. The program and its descendants will free the world from the ancient curse of Babel. Consider just the monetary value. We spend a year of our lives to learn a single language. The average wage in the First World, counting benefits, is $35,000 per year, and there are a billion people here. One billion times $35,000 is thirty five trillion dollars! Ten times the US national debt, and twice the Gross National Product of the entire earth! Translator programs will soon make most of this effort unnecessary, and give us a hundred times our current ability to boot. That is the importance of Entente. That is why using it is part of a great adventure. Alan Mole July 1, 1993 July, 1993 EXTRA WORDS Adding your own special terms There is a file of English and Foreign words to which you can add, so that your own special needs can be accommodated. For example, if you deal in wooden art objects and want to add the words for "pine", "oak", and "mahogany" to the Spanish vocabulary, here is how you would do so. Look up the words in the dictionary, and write them down in the form ENGLISH, SPANISH e.g., PINE, PINO. Open the file SEXTRA by typing EDIT SEXTRA (There is one of these files for each language. For French it is FREXTRA; see the list at the end of this subject). You will see: EXAMPLE, EJEMPLO STOPP,STOPP Use the cursor keys to move below this line, and type in your pair of words, one pair per line. After each pair hit "Enter" to get to the next line. Do not erase STOPP, STOPP! Here is how your file should look when you finish: EXAMPLE, EJEMPLO PINE, PINO OAK, ROBLE MAHOGANY, CAOBA STOPP, STOPP Now hit ALT F, then S, then ALT F then X (to save your work and exit). Various things can go wrong with this procedure, so it is best to check at this point. Type CHECKIT. The program will ask for the name of the file to check. Type SEXTRA and ENTER. The program makes the check and tells you to Edit the resulting file CHK. Do so. Type EDIT CHK (ENTER) and see: Check program for extra words. English Foreign EXAMPLE EJEMPLO PINE PINO OAK ROBLE MAHOGANY CAOBA STOPP You see that something went wrong after Pine, Pino. Therefore, check your work. Type EDIT SEXTRA and see your file: EXAMPLE, EJEMPLO PINE, PINO, OAK, ROBLE MAHOGANY, CAOBA Aha! There is an extra comma after PINO. The computer thinks there is another word on that line, and has read a blank as the next English word, and OAK as the next Spanish word and so on. Remove the offending comma, save again, type CHECKIT again, and see if the new list is OK. Continue to check and correct until it is. Double commas, missing commas, unpaired quotation marks and so on will cause similar problems. PINE PINO missing comma OAK,,ROBLE double comma If you use a phrase you must separate the words with dashes (no spaces!) and type it that way when using the program. You may put up to 200 word-pairs in this file. If this file gets too messed up (especially if you somehow delete all the "STOPP,STOPP" 's at the end, then the program will not run. Reinstall the program from the Program Floppy, or at the DOS prompt type COPY EXEXTRA SEXTRA, (or FREXTRA if you are working with French or whatever other language), and enter. This restores the original, nearly empty file. EXTRA WORDS LISTS Arabic AREXTRA Japanese(Romaji) JREXTRA Chinese (Mainland) MLEXTRA Japanese(Hiragana) JHEXTRA Chinese (Taiwan) TWEXTRA Korean KEXTRA French FREXTRA Polish PLEXTRA German GEXTRA Portuguese PREXTRA Hungarian HEXTRA Portuguese (unaccented) PRUEXTRA Italian ITEXTRA Russian REXTRA Serbo-Croatian YEXTRA (Yugoslavian) Extra (reserve) EXEXTRA Spanish SEXTRA CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH English has few case endings --- only for some pronouns does it even distinguish between subject and object (I-me, he-him,she-her,we-us), and it makes no distinction between direct and indirect object (dative and accusative.) English has only one word for "you", and that can mean you-singular, you-plural, and you -subjective, dative or accusative (subject, object or indirect object)! "YOU" always translates subjective. So be aware that "PLEASE, YOU COME VISIT US IN AMERICA" can mean either you singular or "all of you, your entire family". (Explanation for English speakers: this is as odd as if "he" could mean "he, him, they, them, to him, or to them" !) English has no "familiar you" (like "Du" in German and "Tu " in Spanish) . "You" will always translate "you-formal" with this program. (except possibly in German, where SIE can mean twelve different things, and I may decide to use "Du" to reduce the ambiguity.) Please be aware of this, and realize that English speakers are not cold and formal, they just have no familiar form of "you". If, in Spanish, you receive the translation "YO QUERER UD", then mentally translate it to "Te quiero!", and go on from there. English forms the possessive by adding "'s" to the end of the word for the owner (John's car), and sometimes by the word "of" (car of John). Program users are instructed to use "of" with languages that use "of", and the form "John car" for languages that form possessive that way, but they may forget occasionally. So if , in a romance language, you receive a translation like "JOHN AUTO SER ROTO" , please realize it means "EL AUTO DE JUAN". And if , in Hungarian or another language that forms possessive differently, you get " THE AUTO (POSSESSIVE) JOHN", realize it means "THE JOHN CAR", and continue. English barely conjugates verbs at all. It does not have a different ending for each "person", but says "I walk, you walk, he walks, we walk, you-plural walk, and they walk." As a result, English almost always states the subject.. (Whereas Spanish can say "ando", and this means uniquely "I walk", English must say "I walk". ) This program is based on the simple English method, which is why you must always state the subject. The only time English does not state the subject is when the subject is "you". This may be in a command "COME HERE" means "you come here", or informally, in a question "got a light?" means "Have you a match?" Again, English users are instructed to always state the subject, but if they forget, the subject is probably "you". About ten English verbs are combined with prepositions to form meanings only loosely related to the verb itself. Thus "blow" is combined with "up" to yield "blow up", (to inflate or to explode.) "Get" means to obtain, but may also mean "to obtain a condition of". GET UP means to arise, GET ON means to board, GET OFF means to debark, GET ALONG WITH HIM means to have a good relationship with him. The program tries to catch all such phrases, but if you receive an odd translation anyway, just ask the English speaker what he meant. Verbs used in this troublesome way include GET, PUT, GO, MAKE, TELL, RUN, BLOW, GIVE and DO. "Do" can mean "perform the work associated with". Thus "DO THE DISHES" means "WASH THE DISHES", "DO THE PAINTING" can mean "APPLY THE PAINT" and so on. CHARACTERISTICS OF FRENCH Please see Spanish (below, after French Pronunciation) for the general features of Romance languages. French lacks the word "ago", and instead says "It is two years since I saw him." But it also drops the "since", and says "It is two years I saw him." I have translated this meaning of "il y a" as "ago", so you will get sentences like AGO 10 YEAR I SEE HIM. Just move "ago" to the right place mentally, and it makes sense. As English forms questions using "do" -- "Do you see?", so French forms them with "est c' que"; "is it (true) that"... I have translated this as "do", which seems most natural in sentences like "Do you want to drink beer tonight?". But you will also get sentences like "DO IT IS CORRECT?", which really should be "IS IT TRUE THAT THIS IS CORRECT?" Be forewarned. FRENCH PRONUNCIATION RULES a-- dad ou--you b--boot ch--she, chic ca--cat ai--maid ce--circus eu--lieutenant ci--circus cu--circus --final consonants are usually not co--circus pronounced unless followed by a cy--cynic vowel ex: intelligent, intelligente d--dear --on, en, an, un, in, (nasals, the "n" e--lieutenant not pronounced) f--foot --"e" final not pronounced ga--garage --"th" = t gu--garage --"s" between 2 vowels, "z" go--garage --ph always f gi--Jacques (like zh) ge--Jacques h--not pronounced i--feet j--Jacque (like zh) k--calm l--lac m--mom n--never o--no p--parc q--queen r--rust s--sand t--tall u--too v--valve w--walkman x--xenophone y--cynic z--zebra CHARACTERISTICS OF SPANISH Spanish says "It pleases me" rather than "I like it." The actual word arrangement is "Me pleases it." This creates a problem, because "to please" is an uncommon verb in English, and lacking entirely from some other languages. "To like" is much more common. On the advice of a native Spanish speaker, I have solved this problem by translating the Spanish verb in question, "gustar", as "like" instead of "please". So you will receive the ungrammatical translation "Me like candy." My Spanish teacher would hang me for this, but my real Colombian consultant says, surprisingly, that it's all right. "When you say "I pleases candy", we actually hear "I like candy", and understand perfectly. (How odd it is that so many theoretical grammar problems have no practical effect!) Anyway, you should not question the Spaniard's grammar when you see HIM LIKE THE DOG, and you may, if you want to sound better, say "ME PLEASES THE MOVIE." Spanish says "I call myself Juan" instead of "My name is..". The translation you will receive is I SELF CALL JUAN. This is understandable, and "WHAT BE YOUR NAME?" is understandable in Spanish. Spanish asks "How many years have you?", instead of "How old are you". You should probably use the same form, or at least "What is your age?" in all languages. Because, when you consider it carefully, the English form is almost insulting (it sounds like "How ancient are you?", and begs the response "Not as old as you are ugly!"). Likewise, "What is your weight?" is better than "How heavy are you?". Instead of "What is the weather?" Spanish asks "What makes the weather?, and in place of "It is raining", says "It makes rain." Because Spanish conjugates verbs more completely than English,it often leaves the subject unstated ("Hablo" means, uniquely,"(I) speak", so they don't bother to include "I", any more than we say "You come here". We say simply "Come here", and the "you" is understood. The program instructions tell them to always state the subject, but they may occasionally forget. So if you ask about the weather, you may well get the reply "MAKE RAIN." You should mentally fill in the subject, and hear "It makes rain." In passive voice, we do not name the actor, either because we do not know him or do not want to name him. Instead of "John broke the window." we say "The window was broken." Under the same circumstances, the Spaniard says "The window broke itself". The actual word order and program translation will be SELF BREAK THE WINDOW. Or, HERE SELF SPEAK SPANISH for "Spanish is spoken here." It is a little confusing occasionally, but just remember that SELF BREAK is passive voice, and means something "was broken" by some unnamed party. Spanish is also more prone to say "I wash myself" (I SELF WASH) than just "I wash" . English is more likely to leave "self" implied. Thus we say "I get Billy up at 6:00 AM" but "I get up earlier." Perhaps we should say "I get myself up." Anyway, Spanish says HE SELF RAISE AT THE 5:30. So simply ignore "self" in the cases it seems superfluous. Spanish says "I am going to call the roll", as a simple form of future tense. (actually, I GO TO CALL THE LIST). You may use that form too, though it is usually better to follow the standard rule (Use the present tense and say when for all time frames: I CALL ROLL SOON.) You may also say I WILL CALL -- it will translate the same. Not all languages use the "I WILL" or "I GO" form, and it is best to be consistent and develop good habits. But in Spanish you can get away with it, so use it if you want. French INSTRUCTIONS: Moved to the next-to-last page of this document INSTRUTIONS DANS L' FRANCAIS A le fin de ces document. FENTENT COMPARED TO OTHER ENTENTE PROGRAMS FENTENT has all the features of the full Entente program for English to French. The full program comes with a larger, printed manual. It is also available with vocabularies for Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin, with both Mainland and Taiwan alphabets), German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese (Romaji and Hiragana alphabets), Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian (Yugoslavian), and Spanish. FENTENT will use only the French vocabulary. Entente II is a similar program that translates between any pair of the above languages (including English). For example, it can translate between Hungarian and Arabic, or French and Russian. Prices as of August 1995 are: Entente, with your choice of foreign language, $79.95. Entente II, with any pair of languages, $99.95. Additional languages, which work with either program (but NOT with FENTENT!), $39.95 each. There is a small discount for orders from shareware users, and more price information in the file ORDER.ENT. Prices subject to change without notice; full refund within a year for any reason. To order Entente or Entente II, print the file ORDER.ENT. For more information, write : Entente Corporation 1441 Mariposa Ave. Boulder, CO 80302 USA DISTRIBUTION OF SHAREWARE VERSION Anyone may copy the FENTENT.ZIP or FENTENT.EXE file for trial use,or to distribute to others. FENTENT may be used free for sixty days. You may not modify the program (except the FREXTRA file). You may not sell the program, but you may charge up to $4.00 (U.S.) for the disk and copying, or as a downloading charge from a board. Examples of translations by Entente These "grammar-free" translations will give the potential user an idea of what to expect, and show that it is possible to understand sentences even when a little mental rearranging is necessary. For each language, the Entente manual explains the most common peculiarities (e.g. German often puts the verb at the end of the sentence; Spanish and other Romance languages put the adjective after the noun -- "the car red" instead of "the red car"; and so on.) You will be reading these sentences without the advantage of having read this material, but even so, I think you will find it reasonably understandable. Translations from English to other languages are usually better than those from foreign to English. (English to Spanish translation is shown in a conversation at the end of this section.) I believe this is a fair selection of translations, showing that amusing grammatical errors abound, but truly confusing translations are rare. TRANSLATIONS From Mandarin (Taiwan alphabet cannot be reproduced in this file) I LOVE YOU. YOU WANT GOING DANCING AND DRINK BEER TODAY NIGHT? THE BE MY STORY. MY HOME AT A VERY FAR OF PLACE. MY FATHER BE A FISHERMAN. I AT A VERY LITTLE ISLAND BORN. THERE OF PEOPLE ALL BE FISHERMAN. I SHOULD BE FISHERMAN LIKE MY FATHER. BUT I GOING SCHOOL. I GOING UNIVERSITY. THEN I COME AMERICA. I NOW PLAN GOING (Graduate School -- did not translate) THEN I IMPOSSIBLE BE FISHERMAN. French - English MON VOITURE EST DANS PANNE. EST-CE-QUE IL Y AVOIR UN BON MECHANICIEN DANS VILLE? MY CAR IS IN BREAKDOWN. DO IT IT HAVE A GOOD MECHANIC IN TOWN? JE AVOIR BESOIN DE UN SECRETAIRE QUI POUVOIR ECRIRE A LA MACHINE ET TRADUIRE VITE. I HAVE NEED OF A SECRETARY THAT CAN TYPE AND TRANSLATE QUICKLY. German - English (Note: Some accented characters did not print in early test files, so German may be misspelled in places. Der-Das-Die gets changed automatically to "Der", and some other words are replaced with their masculine variants too. But "natural" German was input originally. It is also just possible that in retyping the foreign input for any language, I might have made a mistake or two. However, in all cases, foreign input was written by foreign natives in their own natural word orders, though subject to the rules of Entente, such as no-plurals and always-state-the-subject. These are legitimate examples, not transliterated English.) ICH BRAUCHEN EIN SEKRETRIN DER SCHNELL SCHREIBEN UND VON ITALIENISCH ZU RUSSISCH UBERSETZEN KONNEN. I NEED A SECRETARY THAT QUICKLY WRITE AND OF ITALIAN TO RUSSIAN TRANSLATE CAN. WO IST DER KRANKENHAUS? WHERE IS THE HOSPITAL? Hungarian-English-German EN SZERET TERMESZET. ITT A SOK HEGY VAN NAGYON SZEP ES MAGAS. A LEVEGO KITUNO. TE SZERET KIRANDUL? MENJUNK EGYUTT HOLNAP. I LOVE ENVIRONMENT. HERE THE MUCH MOUNTAIN BE VERY BEAUTIFUL AND HIGH. THE AIR GREAT. YOU LOVE EXCURSION? LETS GO TOGETHER TOMORROW. ICH LEIBEN UMWELT. HIER DER VIEL BERG SEIN ABSOLUT SCHON UND HOCH . DER LUFT GROSSARTIG. DU LEIBEN EXCURSION? LAS UNS GEHEN ZUSSAMEN MORGEN. Italian-English IERI ESSERE UN GIORNO MOLTO TERRIBLE IL TEMPO ESSERE MOLTO FREODO NEVE E LE AUTOMBILE AVERE MOLTI PROBLEMA PERCHE ESSERE MOLTI INCIDENTE SECONDO LE POLIZIA ESSERE PUI DI 30 INCIDENTE. YESTERDAY BE A DAY VERY TERRIBLE THE WEATHER BE VERY COLD MUCH SNOW AND THE CAR HAVE MANY PROBLEM BECAUSE BE MANY ACCIDENT ACCORDING THE POLICE BE MORE THAN 30 ACCIDENT. Japanese-English-Spanish WATASHIWA BOUSHI SOSHITE CHIISAI SHIKIMONO SOSHITE SHOKURYOU WA KAU NARANI . DOKO DE KAU DEKIRU? I HAT AND LITTLE RUG AND FOOD BUY MUST. WHERE AT BUY CAN? YO SOMBRERO Y PEQUEÑO ALFOMBRA Y ALMIENTO COMPRAR TENER QUE. ADONDE EN COMPRAR PODER? Korean-English (Korean letters cannot be reproduced here. Koreans write some letters under others. In Entente, on screen, they stack-up correctly, but on the printer they appear "linearly". ) ME QUICKLY AIRPORT TAKE! MY AIRPLANE 10:30 AM DEPART. Polish-English (Context: a man comes into a hotel, whose front faces the street, and whose back faces the river.) JA CHCIE CICHY POKOJ NIE Z WIDOK DO ULICA ALE Y Z WIDOK DO RZEKA. I WANT QUIET ROOM NO FROM VIEW TO AVENUE BUT Y FROM VIEW TO RIVER. (The extra "Y" is probably a typo. As in listening, you must simply ignore things you don't understand. But normally you will understand. Here, the man wants a room, not on the street but facing the river.) Portuguese-English QUANTO CUSTAR ESTE CAMISA? HOW MUCH COST THIS SHIRT? EU QUERER ALUGAR UMA BICICLETA. I WANT RENT A BICYCLE. Russian-English (Russian Cyrillic letters cannot be reproduced in this file) AS YOUR NAME? (A quirk of Russian, meaning "What is your name?" Users are warned of this. It is included here to show that occasionally there are confusing things, though rather rarely, and usually not too confusing. Fortunately, since this is a conversational translator, you can ask for immediate clarification!) MY CAR NOT WORK. IS OK MECHANIC IN TOWN? THOUGH RAIN, WE ANYHOW GO. I WANT QUIET ROOM FOR ONE MAN FOR 3 NIGHT. ROOM NOT ON STREET, BUT FACING TO RIVER. PLEASE, CARRY ME TO AIRPORT QUICKLY. MY PLANE DEPART INTO 10:30 MORNING. Serbo-Croatian-English KAKO TVOJE IME? HOW YOURS NAME? JA II NA UNIVERZITET JA U*ITI ISTORIJA I NALAZITI DOBAR POSAO U AMBASADA. I GO ON UNIVERSITY I TEACH HISTORY AND FIND GOOD BUSINESS TO EMBASSY. (One would respond "YOU MEAN THAT YOU WANT TO WORK AT THE EMBASSY?") Spanish-English-Spanish (All the standard translations, about broken cars and renting bicycles, are excellent. Here is a conversation that might occur at the airport lost-luggage desk:) Traveler: MI MALETE NO APARECER. YO VENIR DE BOGOTA. NECESITAR LA MALETA HOY. YO TENER MUCHO PAPEL IMOORTANTE ALLI. QUE PODER YO HACER? MY SUITCASE NO APPEAR. I COME OF BOGOTA. NEED THE SUITCASE TODAY. I HAVE MUCH PAPER IMPORTANT THERE. WHAT CAN I DO? Clerk: SUITCASE PROBABLY COME ON NEXT PLANE. HERE BE PAPER WITH PICTURE OF MANY KIND OF SUITCASE. PLEASE SAY WHICH PICTURE BE MOST LIKE YOUR SUITCASE. (Clerk shows the standard picture-card.) MALETA PROBLAMENTE VENIR EN PROXIMO AVION. AQUI ESTAR PAPEL CON PINTURA DE MUCHOS TIPO DE MALETA. POR FAVOR DECIR CUAL PINTURA ESTAR MAS COMO SU MALETA. Traveler: (Points:) MI MALETA SER COMO ESTO. PERO YO SER PREOCUPADO. A QUE HORA LLEGAR PROXIMO VUELA? MY SUITCASE BE LIKE THIS. BUT I BE PREOCCUPIED. AT WHAT HOUR ARRIVE NEXT FLIGHT? Clerk: PLANE ARRIVE IN 2 HOUR . WE SEND SUITCASE TO YOUR HOTEL IMMEDIATELY. WHICH HOTEL YOU STAY AT? AVION LLEGAR EN 2 HORA. NOS MANDAR MALETA A SU HOTEL INMEDIATAMENTE. QUAL HOTEL UD QUEDAR A? Traveler: YO ESTAR HOLIDAY INN. GRACIAS. I BE HOLIDAY INN. THANKS. FRENCH INTRODUCTION C'est un programme de traduction simple mais util. Avec l'aide de ces programme, vous pouvez dire presque tout ce que vouz voulez dans la plupart des langues principales du mond. Vous pouvez utiliser ce programme sur un micro de table dans un bureau ou le hall d'un hotel, aussi bien que pour parler a des invites ou bien vous pouvez le porter avec vous dans une petite caisse a ordinateur quand vous voyagez a l'entranger. Le programme marche sans un usage parfait de la grammaire. Il ne va pas traduire des verbes conjugues ou des noms au pluriel, vous utilisez donc l'infinitif ou des mots au singulier. On peut comprendre " 3 homme combrioler une banque hier" de la meme facon qu'on comprend " 3 hommes ont combriole une banque hier". Donc la conjugaison et le nombre ne sont pas necessaires. Les traductions ne seront pas tres bonnes mais on les comprendra. L'absence d'une grammaire parfaite n'empeche pas de pouvoir communiquer entre n'importe quelles deux langues du monde. Et voila quelques exemples: French-English COMBIEN COUTER CE CHEMISE? HOW MUCH COST THIS SHIRT? English-French I WANT TO RENT A BICYCLE. JE VOULOIR LOUER UN BICYCLETTE. Hungarian-English-French EN SZERET TERMESZET. ' ITT A SOK HEGY NAGYON SZEP ES MAGAS. I LOVE THE ENVIRONMENT. ' HERE THE LOT MOUNTAIN IS VERY BEAUTIFUL AND HIGH. JE AIMER ENVIRONMENT. ' ICI LA BEAUCOUP MONTAGNE EST TRES BEAU ET HAUT. German-French ICH BENOTIGEN EINE SEKRETARIN, DER SCHNELL TIPPEN KONNEN UND UBERSETZEN VON DEUTSCH AUF UNGARISCH. JE AVOIR BECOIN DE UN SECRETAIRE, QUI VITE ECRIRE A LA MACHINE POUVOIR ET TRADUIRE DE ALLEMAND QUAND HONGROIS. Chinese (Taiwan)-French [Taiwan font can not be shown here.] JE AIMER TU. TU VOULOIR ALLER DANSE ET BOIRE BIERE AUJOURDIHUI NUIT? Le "translator" a presque la meme capacite qu'un etudiant a la fin de sa deuxieme annee d'etude de langue etrangere. Bien sur il est preferable d'appredre a parler une langue etrangere, mais parfois on a besoin de visiter Le Caire ou Budapeste la semaine porchaine et on n'a pas deux ans pour etudier l'arabe ou le hongrois. Dans ce cas la , le programme pourrait etre tres utile. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ATTENTION!! Souvenez-vous que cela arrive meme avec des traducteurs humains experts. Ne comptez jamais sur le programme pour executer des contrats importants etc... il arrive parfois, mais pas souvent, que la traduction soit trompeuse, alors vous ne voulez pas risquer un million de dollars sur cela. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Limites Toutes les langues contiennent des mots grossiers et des mots qui deviennent rudes quand on les met dans une certaine combinaison. Le programme n'en sait rien, alors il arrive qu'on obtient parfois une traduction drole. Alors, si vous recevez une traduction telle que: priere de ne pas rire. Si quelqu'un se fache en recevant votre traduction, reprochez cela au programme. Shareware C'est un shareware - on pourrait l'utiliser gratuitement pendant soixante jours, mais il faudrait s'y abonner et l'acheter si l'usage etait pour une periode plus longue.Le bon de commande est FRORDER; pour s'abonner ou acheter Entente en d'autres langues ou Entente II ( entre n'importe quelles deux langues, ex. Francais-russe ou francais-Coreen), il faudrait simplement taper FRORDER. On pourrait donner une copie de FENTENT a n'importe qui on veut, mais on ne pourrait pas la vendre. Si vous voulez vous pouvez demanderjusqu'a $4 americain pour les frais de la copie. Garantie Le fabricant ne donne aucune garantie sauf celle de renvoyer le programme n'importe quand pour un remboursement complet au cas ou vous ne l'aimeriez pas. Le "translator" est imparfait et peut-etre ne repondrait-il pas a votre besoin specifique. L'importance du "translator" L'homme a toujours reve d'un traducteur unviersel. Ces machines-ci apparaissent continuellement dans les films de science-fiction. Mais on n'a jamais eu de telle machine jusqu'a maintenant. Le programme exige un peu d'effort et de pratique, toutefois pas meme une fraction d'un mille de ce qu'exige a appredre une langue etrangere. Ce programme n'est pas encore parfait. Mais il vous permet de communiquer en 13 langues differentes couvrant ainsi la plupart du monde, et de faire aussi partie d'une merveilleuse experience: un traducteur unversel qui permettra aux personnes de toute nationalite de communiquer ensemble. J'espere que aimerez cette experince unique. Les caracteristiques des langues Quelques langues expriment la possession en utilisant le mot "de", comme en francais. Exemple "la voiture de Jean". D'autres emploient la declinaison ou un suffixe poir marquer le possesseur. Ex: "Jean's voiture". Dans d'autres langues l'ordre des mots est different pour exprimer la possession. Ex: "le Jean chien", "Jean son chien", etc. Remarquer que dans n'importe quelle langre "la photo de Jean" signifie soit la photo qui apparient a Jean, soit la photo qui montre Jean. Quelques langues mettent le verbe a la fin de la phrase. Ex: "Jean a l'ecole va", ou "il le faire peut". Cette sore de phrase vous pouvez deviner le sens sans beaucoup de pratique. Quelques langues forment une question en utlilsant "est-ce que", d'autres disent "Quelle est votre anciennete?" au lieu de "quel age avez-vous?". Il s'agit ici d'une particularite de la langue. En francais par exemple on demande, "comment vous appelez-vous", au lieu de l'usage commun de la question "quel est votre nom", dans beaucoup d'autres langues. Vous n'allez pas toujours conmpredre la traduction que le programme vous donnera, exactement comme vous ne comprenez pas absolument tout dans une nouvelle langue que vous etudiez. Mais approximativement neuf phrases sur dix seront assez claires pour vous. Et si vous ne comprenez pas quelque chose d'important, vous pourrez toujours demander a l'etranger d'expliquer. Probablement, vous allez meme etre surpris par la bonne qualite de votre communcation avec un etranger meme sur des sujets. FRENCH INSTRUCTIONS Instructions 1-Ecrivez votre phrase. Si vous utilisez un mot ambigue vous entendez un signal et le programme vous demandera le sens que vous voulez attribuer au mot (ex:devoir) entrez 1 ou 2 et continuez. 2-La traduction se fait automatiquement si vous appuyez sur "enter". Puis vous pouvez ecrire une autre phrase, ou bien vous pouvez toucher "tab" en haut du clavier vers la gauche pour passer de la langue francaise a l'autre langue. De cette maniere l'etranger vous repondra. 3-Utilisez uniquement la forme infinitive du verbe,(comme marcher,aller,etre). ex: JEAN ETRE GRAND. IL ALLER A LONDRE. JE MARCHER SUR LA COLLINE. 4-N'utilisez pas de "l'",mais utilisez l'article "le" ou "la". N'utilisez pas de trait d'union entre le verbe et le pronom quand vous posez une question. ex: pas "voulez-vous", mais, "voulez vous". N'utilisez pas de cedille, mais utilisez tout simplement la lettre "c". 5-Utilisez toujours des noms au singulier,ex:trois cheval. 6-N'importe quelle phrase avec l'expression "s'il vous plait" est un ordre poli, en ne tenant pas compte de l'ordre des mots. ex: VOUS PIERRE DONNER LE PASSEPORTE S'IL VOUS PLAIT. Dans des langues differentes, l'ordre des mots varient, mais cette regle s'applique toujours- alors utilisez toujours l'expression "sil vous plait". 7-N'importe quelle phrase avec un point d'interrogation est une question en ne tenant pas compte de l'ordre des mots.ex: VOUS VOULOIR DANSER? VOUS SORTIR SOUVENT? 8-Evitez l'usage de verbes compliques, avec plusieurs mots. exemple: "JE PARTIR DEMAIN".non pas "je vais partir demain". Ne dites pas:"j'aurais du partir" etc. 9-Regardez la traduction. Quelques mots vont peut-etre apparaitre sur l'ecran pas traduits. Ne vous inquietez pas. Peut-etre le mot que vous avez tape est un nom propre qui en general ne se traduit pas a une autre langue. Quand le programme ne connait pas un mot, il le reproduit tel qu'il est. Dans d'autres cas le mot est peut-etre un mot apparente qui est similaire ou presque similaire dans 2 langues. Par exemple si vous voyez le mot "theater" vous le reconnaissez comme "theatre". Cependant parfois vous pourriez voir apparaitre sur l'ecran un mot avec des lettres d'alphabet que vous ne reconnaissez pas, par exemple en arabe. Dans ce cas la , il faut montrer ce mot avec le doigt et le dire a voix haute. Si c'est un endroit, il faut l'indiquer sur une carte. Meme parfois, il se passe que le programme ne traduit pas un mot parce que tout simplement il ne connait pas ce mot. Dans ce cas la, il faut choisir un autre mot plus courant, ou expliquer ce mot. (quand cela se passe avec vous, montrez le mot que vous ne comprenez pas ou demandez sa signification. ex: POUVOIR VOUS VOLER UN PLANEUR? CAN YOU FLY A PLANEUR? PLANEUR SIGNIFIER UN AVION SANS MOTEUR. PLANEUR MEAN A AIRPLANE WITHOUT MOTOR. INSTALLATION Entrez FENT (Enter) et le programme marchez.