Hi Sam.
Google Translate is actually quite good, even with lengthy documents. My father (anthropologist ... will be 90 years old in April 2014) just published his latest work (826 pages). I'm taking on the responsibility of translating it into Spanish. Upon submitting the full document to Google Translate, it took less than a second to reap the free results. Note that for a fee, Google offers translation polishing by native speakers/writers. As I indicated in my former post, polishing is always required for machine translations.
Here is a small sample of my father's writing, followed by the version offered by Google Translate:
A specific example is that 聯the many biblical passages that mention city gates聴not as part of any deliberate propaganda, but simply offhand聴fit remarkably well with [what we have learned from] excavated gates at a number of sites of the 10th聳7th centuries, and only of this period . . . . No writer living [centuries later] could have 聭invented聮 [references to] city gates like [these], known only long before.聰 Since these 聯convergences聰 occur at point after point, he concludes that the original books of the Hebrew scripture had to have been written by men who were eyewitnesses of the particular realities their accounts report or reflect.
A similar method has been employed for the last 50 years to argue for the authenticity of that portion (the first 7% or so of the text) of the Book of Mormon that deals with events in the ancient Near East dating near 600 BC. Hugh Nibley, first in book form in 1952, discussed parallels between statements in the first part of the Nephite scripture and data from secular scholarship on life in the ancient Near East. Over the last half-century other researchers have also pursued this line of inquiry.
Of course there are formidable problems in such analysis. Even at best documentary history tells us only part of 聯what happened聰 in the past. For instance the Hebrew document gives us only minimal information about social condition among the Israelites themselves, as well as their relations to the neighboring Canaanites, Philistines, and Amorites.
Any picture of ancient societies coming from archaeology also remains partial. After all, most of the material archaeologists study was ancient garbage, and there are unavoidable problems of omission in reconstructing history from trash. Furthermore, excavation yields information only by inference; it never 聯tells its own story.聰 In any case only a fraction of the material that was left behind by ancient peoples ever gets discovered and then interpreted by archaeologists.
Most archaeologists too readily speak as if their data were complete and their inferences were facts. But highly reputable archaeologists warn that the archaeological record contains few facts as such. But over the years, archaeologists have built up a series of inferences about the meaning of the archaeological record; yet they never know for sure if their interpretation of the record is built on a solid foundation of knowledge or only on a quicksand of guesses and speculation.
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Translated version of codex_test.txt
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Un ejemplo concreto es que "los muchos pasajes b铆blicos que mencionan a la ciudad las puertas, no como parte de una propaganda deliberada, sino simplemente brusco ajuste muy bien con [lo que hemos aprendido de] puertas excavadas en varios sitios de la d茅cimo-s茅ptima siglos, y s贸lo de este per铆odo. . . . Ning煤n escritor que vive [siglos despu茅s] podr铆an haber "inventado" [referencias] puertas de la ciudad, como [ellos], s贸lo conocido mucho antes. "Dado que estos" convergencias "ocurren en el punto despu茅s del punto, concluye que los libros originales de la Escritura Hebrea tuvo que haber sido escrita por hombres que fueron testigos oculares de las realidades particulares de sus cuentas informan o reflejan.
Un m茅todo similar se ha empleado durante los 煤ltimos 50 a帽os para argumentar a favor de la autenticidad de esa parte (la primera el 7% o menos del texto) del Libro de Morm贸n que se ocupa de los acontecimientos en el Oriente Pr贸ximo antiguo que data cerca del a帽o 600 aC. Hugh Nibley, por primera vez en forma de libro en 1952, discuti贸 paralelismos entre las declaraciones en la primera parte de la escritura nefita y los datos de la beca secular sobre la vida en el antiguo Cercano Oriente. Durante los 煤ltimos cincuenta a帽os otros investigadores tambi茅n han seguido esta l铆nea de investigaci贸n.
Por supuesto que hay enormes problemas en este tipo de an谩lisis. Incluso en el mejor de la historia documental nos dice s贸lo una parte de "lo que ocurri贸" en el pasado. Por ejemplo, el documento hebreo nos da informaci贸n m铆nima acerca de la condici贸n social entre los israelitas mismos, as铆 como sus relaciones con los vecinos cananeos, filisteos, amorreos.
Cualquier imagen de las sociedades antiguas procedentes de la arqueolog铆a tambi茅n sigue siendo parcial.
Despu茅s de todo, la mayor parte del estudio de los arque贸logos material era antigua de basura, y hay problemas inevitables de omisi贸n en la reconstrucci贸n de la historia de la basura. Por otra parte, la excavaci贸n se obtiene informaci贸n s贸lo por inferencia, nunca "cuenta su propia historia." En todo caso, s贸lo una fracci贸n del material que fue dejado por los pueblos antiguos consigue siempre descubierto y luego interpretados por los arque贸logos.
La mayor铆a de los arque贸logos hablan con demasiada facilidad como si sus datos son completos y sus inferencias fueron hechos. Pero los arque贸logos de reconocido prestigio advierten que el registro arqueol贸gico contiene algunos hechos como tales. Pero con los a帽os, los arque贸logos han construido una serie de inferencias sobre el significado de los registros arqueol贸gicos, sin embargo, nunca se sabe a ciencia cierta si su interpretaci贸n del registro est谩 construido sobre una base s贸lida de conocimiento o s贸lo en las arenas movedizas de conjeturas y especulaciones.
As you can see, very little adjustment (human interface) is required to realize a very positive translation.
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Hello,
