Two Questions

[oldernotwiser]

Question 1:  I am considering traveling to the Ukraine in December, it seems LOT, Polish airlines is a couple of hundred dollars less expensive for me flying to Odessa.  Should I fly with LOT, or would it be better to fly with another airline? 

Question 2:  Does anybody use any of the online translators?  Which ones?  Are they reliable, what has been anyones experience?

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks

[kievstar]

What city are you flying from to Odessa?

[SANDRO43]

Question 2:  Does anybody use any of the online translators?  Which ones?  Are they reliable, what has been anyone's experience?

You'll find a few links in our RWDpedia (http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/mwiki/index.php?title=Translators).

Their reliability is directly proportional to the simplicity of the text you're feeding them, i.e. they're acceptable for very basic language .

A simple test is having them translate back to your language their first translation of your input.

[Jumper]

I've flown LOT often,,
it's always been decent, and no problems.

[groovlstk]

I've flown LOT often,,
it's always been decent, and no problems.

Me too. Just be ready for lots of children on your flight and (sometimes) odd food. On my last flight to Warsaw they served us "light" sandwiches - two slices of bread, in between which was a single leaf of lettuce and lots of mayo

LOT is part of the STAR Alliance which includes Lufthansa and Austrian, all of which have routes to Ukraine and Russia, so be sure to sign up for the FF program.

[Turboguy]

Fly LOT,  They crash a lot less often than Aeroflot anyway.  Look at the bright side.  If it crashes your family will have a few hundred more to bury whatever body parts they recover.  Seriously try it.  I have airlines I will avoid and ones I like and if it saves me enough then I will fly the cheapest.  If it is close then I go with the one I like.   The ones on my pay a little extra to fly someone else are Air France and Aeroflot.  I think I have flown Lot (not sure) and it seems to me it was OK.

On translators I would do what Sandro suggests.   Try several.  Write a couple of paragraphs.  Translate it to Russian.  Translate that back to English and compare the results.   The one that did the worst when I tried it was
Alta Vista which is the one I had used most before doing that.  One of the better ones was translate.ru   Try several.   Any using the Prompt engine should be similar and that seemed to do fairly well.  

[oldernotwiser]

Hey thanks for the replies Sandro, AJ, Groovlstk and Turboguy.  I feel more comfortable flying LOT after reading your replies, and I will try out some of the translators listed.

[Mila]

Hi there! I see that you are going to Ukraine, that's great! i wish you all the best and have a wonderful trip! If you need my help or advice, you are always welcome! Take care!

[Shadow]

Oldernotwiser,

To make a more lengthy reply on online translators, I would like to point out their use/non-use and myths.

Online translators are a great help for people who are used and/or skilled in translating by dictionary.
What they add is the ability to detect things like the verbs and a very limited grammar. They mostly lack knowledge of slang, common misspellings and elaborate sentence building.
The often mentioned 'translate and translate back' does not give the possibilities full credit. It would be better to have a text translated by a human translator and an online translator, and compare those. The reason is that if you will translate literally by the use of a dictionary, and translate that back by a dictionary again, you will find that the second translation will lose a lot of its power and readability.

Short sentences with simple grammar will do best in using online translators. To check for spelling errors, learn to read the translated text and see which words are not translated.

Now for the hard part. Translated text by online translator is, like text translated by dictionary, not yet an accurate translation. The translation needs to be interpreted and corrected. If you, or the person you are sending the text to, has experience in interpreting the translation it is going to be a good tool. However if neither of you have this experience and are reading the translation 'as it is' the results will be a lot of miscommunication.

This is why the profession is called interpreter, and not translator.

I have been taught how to make interpretation of a dictionary translated text, and have managed to apply this up to semi-professional level with usually good results. By this I can use online translators and come up with good texts in languages I know.
However always send the original text with the translated one, so that if part the translation is causing concern, t can be redone.

[SANDRO43]

This is why the profession is called interpreter, and not translator.

New definition to me, I was always under the impression that translators worked with written texts and interpreters with verbal communications, and did both for some 6 years before joining IBM (maybe for the better, since apparently I had not fully understood my own profession ).