I have lived in France for some 4 years now and generally have a good grasp of the language. My need for such software is to ensure that correspondence and other documentation that I need to send out is at a level that projects a professional image. This software just cannot provide that. I was appalled at just how bad it was at translating English text into French. My children have also confirmed that the same applies in translating English into Spanish.

Some examples: From the French language perspective the software is unable to get the word sequencing and sentence structure correct. It also cannot differentiate between masculine and feminine nouns such that adjectives describing a feminine noun that end with a 'e' do not get the extra 'e' added. This is basic French language and the software just cannot cope with it. It also has a very basic and limited vocabulary.

It seems that the adage 'you get what you pay for' applies here. If you are looking for software that will give you a high success rate in translating documents then this product is not it. There are much better products available on the market, and yes they are more expensive, but the choice is up to you!


It works   March 14, 2004
 57 out of 60 found this review helpful

It's a CD in a box that won't fit through your letterbox, had to pick mine up at the post office! Thats my only complaint and the only hassle with an amazing bit of kit. I'm no whizz with computing by any standard, but I managed to load it and use it in minutes.
Only had it a few days and managed to scan and translate, type and translate and just now tried it succesfully on a french web page. How well does it work?
Well when you type and translate you can help it by using short sentences. I was told an email I sent was perfectly understandable although with a few bits of added humour for the reader. So, Typing 95%. Scan and trans 85%. Web page90%. (all Eng-Fre). You will still need a dictionary here and there for the odd specialist word. It also has a dynamic memory to remember your input for the words it does'nt know but unfortunately it forgets them again if you shut down the computer! Shame that, as its the only nit pick I'd have.I will be using mine quite a bit and I'm glad I bought it, which certainly isn't true of all the software I have!