how to translate on the fly

english-japanese-english

[whizzy]

I got a client who wants a solution for his website that when someone write a topic in english, someone that has his langage settings set for japanese the topic should be displayed in japanese and the other way around.

Is this possible? I guess that when the topic is stored a japanese version is made on the fly and stored in the database, but how? I had a look at SYSTRAN but not sure if this product can work like that....and can I make it only with PHP. Probably too much work!

Anyone done something like this before? If not...can it be done?

[takagi]

Japanese and English are very different languages, which makes it hard for automatic translation. There are several PC applications that offer this function, and usually the result is rather bad. Maybe it will be possible in 10 years or so?

[moltar]

I actually heard few years ago that Japan invented some technology that allows translation of the voice on the fly. It was made for long distance companies. You can speak Japanese into the phone and hear English on the other side and vice-versa.

Not sure how true that is, but definitely recall it!

[takagi]

Just try it your self. Enter the URL of a Japanese page and check if the English translation makes sense.

Nifty [nifty.com]

Excite [excite.co.jp]

WorldLingo [worldlingo.com]

[whizzy]

So its not possible....was afraid of that... :-(

This is what my client wants, but even those translation programs is not good enough. Well...maybe i have to invent something for myself then...and I don't even speak a word japanese...

Thanks for the answers though.