Looking for *for-pay* Chinese translation resources
Thread poster: Mark Pleas
Mark Pleas
Mark Pleas  Identity Verified
Japan
Local time: 00:53
Member (2020)
Japanese to English
+ ...
Apr 17, 2020

Hello. I am looking around for some higher-quality Chinese↔Chinese and Chinese→English digital translation resources (mainly dictionaries), but what I am specifically looking for are *for-pay* resources. If that sounds confusing, let me explain what I am referring to.

I have been translating Italian→English and Japanese→English for years. For assistance in translating Italian, I started out using a CD-based dictionary-search program that was included with a giant Garzanti pr
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Hello. I am looking around for some higher-quality Chinese↔Chinese and Chinese→English digital translation resources (mainly dictionaries), but what I am specifically looking for are *for-pay* resources. If that sounds confusing, let me explain what I am referring to.

I have been translating Italian→English and Japanese→English for years. For assistance in translating Italian, I started out using a CD-based dictionary-search program that was included with a giant Garzanti printed Italian-English dictionary that I bought way back in about 2007. Then, a few years ago, I began using the Ragazzini Italian-English dictionary from Zanichelli, which is available — both online through a browser and offline through its own software — for about EUR 13/year.

For assistance in translating Japanese, several years ago I began using a paid suite of Japanese↔Japanese and Japanese↔English dictionaries offered by Kenkyusha (online only, via web browser, with a Japanese-only interface, for JPY 6,600 every six months). With this platform, one can perform full-text searches across a variety of up-to-date dictionaries and books from different publishers, so it gives one access to a rather broad range of results, some of which are even idiomatic.

Recently, though, I have begun receiving more requests for Chinese→English (mostly Mainland/simplified, but also one large request for Taiwan/traditional).

Although there are many Chinese resources available for free online, often the translation suggestions offered by these free resources are incorrect or unnatural. (Among Western resources, for example, Linguee is a great way to see how businesses actually do translate certain expressions, but what becomes painfully clear for me with Linguee is simply the fact that many Italian and Japanese companies use English translations that are very wooden or even faulty.) However, in the case of the paid Italian and Japanese dictionaries that I am using, there are actual *human* editors who review and check the entries, so these resources tend to offer translation options, usage notes, and other items that are more reliable, less direct, and more up-to-date.

For the last 2 years or so, I have been searching around online for evidence of any sort of for-pay dictionary resources for Chinese (both Chinese↔Chinese and Chinese→English, primarily Mainland rather than Taiwan), but I have not been able to find anything other than CDs that come as extras with some of the big, printed dictionaries.

I have seen the various MDX-format dictionaries — many of them purloined — that people have placed online for use with MDict, but these dictionaries are mostly not legal, they are not the latest versions, and doing full-text searches across multiple dictionaries appears to be difficult if not impossible.

So, I am wondering whether anyone here might be able to suggest any sort of for-pay Chinese translation resources (either dictionaries or machine translation), or whether it is the case that I will simply have to make do with the numerous free online dictionary and translation sites that are based in China.

Thank you very much.
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Milan Condak
Milan Condak  Identity Verified
Local time: 16:53
English to Czech
Try Tmxmall Apr 17, 2020

http://kv-emptypages.blogspot.cz/2018/03/tmxmall-translation-memory-marketplace.html

THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2018

Tmxmall - Translation Memory Marketplace Overview

This is a guest post by the principals of Tmxmall, which is a Chinese Translation Memory Marketplace, i.e. a site that sells translation memory to intereste
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http://kv-emptypages.blogspot.cz/2018/03/tmxmall-translation-memory-marketplace.html

THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2018

Tmxmall - Translation Memory Marketplace Overview

This is a guest post by the principals of Tmxmall, which is a Chinese Translation Memory Marketplace, i.e. a site that sells translation memory to interested parties (mostly translators and LSPs).

Temporary is free

https://md.taus.net/corona

The Chinese corpus is a selection from TAUS DataCloud and UN Parallel Corpus

English-Chinese 450,507 Download

Milan

[Edited at 2020-04-17 11:41 GMT]
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Mark Pleas
Mark Pleas  Identity Verified
Japan
Local time: 00:53
Member (2020)
Japanese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
@Milan Apr 18, 2020

Thank you very much for the two links. They are very interesting.

 
Eugenio Garcia-Salmones
Eugenio Garcia-Salmones  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 16:53
Member (2015)
Russian to Spanish
+ ...
Ricci Apr 19, 2020

I think pleco offers the ricci dictionary in English, but it is in the form of a mobile phone app. I use the original French on CD bought 8 years ago.

 
Mark Pleas
Mark Pleas  Identity Verified
Japan
Local time: 00:53
Member (2020)
Japanese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
@Eugenio Apr 20, 2020

Thank you very much for that information. I will certainly keep in mind the option of using Le Grand Ricci.

 


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Looking for *for-pay* Chinese translation resources







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