Real-Time chat translation on mac using either Skype, Adium or iChat

If you're looking for MSN and / or Windows, just go here.

I'm looking for Real-Time chat translation tools for Mac, and preferably using Adium, but it could be for Skype, iChat or maybe another option if it's really good.

So far I could only easily find a plugin for Adium, simply called translator, that uses google, dicts and babelfish, but you have to type commands in and paste the words or sentences, and it's currently not even working on Snow Leopard. Even if it did, it's still not quite as automatic as we'd expect (or see in other platforms as indicated). So I'm just citing it as an example of a bad solution.

cregox

Posted 2010-03-04T16:08:09.023

Reputation: 5 119

How do you define "real time"? You need to see the translation as you're typing in your own language? Or it does the translation between the time you hit return and the time the message gets sent? Or something else? – iconoclast – 2011-05-24T20:17:16.360

@Brandon as close as while typing as possible. The faster the better, but it'd be ok if it was a translation as I hit return. Mostly it should translate text I've receive first of all - just like google site translate works on websites. I did a minor edit, hopefully it's clearer now. – cregox – 2011-05-24T20:50:16.923

Answers

Exactly what you are looking for? SkypeExtender

This appears to be another option for Skype.

evan.bovie

Posted 2010-03-04T16:08:09.023

Reputation: 2 758

That link to "another option" (ULRTMT) seems to be made in ActiveX (non Mac friendly) and looks to be old and outdated and I just couldn't make it work. While, SkypeExtender is ugly in many ways (installation, running instance, shortcuts, interface, etc) and I couldn't find any way to enable/disable the translator... Other than that, it's precisely what I'm looking for! :) – cregox – 2011-05-25T13:00:07.963

Actually SkypeExtender sucks. I not only can not turn it off at all, its translation is sent back (is not local only) to the person who I'm talking to and sometimes it's completely wrong... Plus let's say I'm talking in english, it will try to translate english to english and build up a cumbersome clustering chat. I'm already looking for a way to uninstall it and never use it again - though I tried contacting the developer and see what he says. – cregox – 2011-05-25T15:22:42.937

Another bad point to it: can't uninstall, hard to delete. I had to go through many files, using few apps I luckly had, and manually delete them - all spread around. Really really bad. I wish I didn't need to give such a bad review for it. – cregox – 2011-05-26T00:34:20.450

@Cawas There aren't that many solutions that I could find for you. I bet that in a few years when translation technology improves, the will be a large selection of apps available. My favorite Mac uninstallers are TrashMe and AppCleaner, if you need any additional removal.

– evan.bovie – 2011-05-26T00:50:11.560

I've had a brief talk few moments ago with Peter W Williams, the developer, and he said some of the many fixes were already been developed and it will be released very soon. So, let's hope that fixes all the major bugs and then I can go with SkypeExtender again! :) – cregox – 2011-05-26T03:01:34.140

Se usi Skype aggiornato all'ultima versione questa e' una buona soluzione anche se devi ben sapere che oltre ad essere gratuita come tutti i traduttori non saranno mai perfette le traduzioni ma comprensibili per chi riceve nell'altro computer spero di essere stato chiaro. Salutissimi

Vai a questo link e prova se ti interessa.......

http://clownfish-translator.com/mac.html

user126957

Posted 2010-03-04T16:08:09.023

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