Happy New Year to all. I must have too much time on my hands so I decided to throw an article together.

Online translation has come a long way in just the past few years and I thought I would share my experience that others may find helpful for relatively small amounts of translation.

It's easy to take something for granted when you've been doing it a while but not everyone would know how to go about it or even where to start so I hope this is helpful to someone here.

In my case I've been translating some old Faller material and it's been very successful but for the purpose of this exercise I'll use an example that is probably more relevant to other members than what I've actually been doing, although the basic steps and the outcome are the same.

So, you have a printed item in another language that you would like to read. In my case, it's anything hobby related, usually Faller or Märklin and generally is from a book or catalogue.

But let's use Koll's as a good example. Herr Koll always starts his annual book with a forward or preface, and each year it's different but interesting. And there is of course the actual item descriptions when you are trying to identify a certain model variant.

For this purpose I will use an older Koll's book, the 1995 Spezial edition of advertising items.



Oh, and there is a reason I wanted this page translated. I collect ANY advertising wagons for HP / Hewlett Packard. There are a number of the earlier ones in this book and Joachim happens to refer to the brand in his forward so naturally I wanted to know what the context was.

There are two main steps; Conversion, and Translation

Conversion is getting the original material into a format that can be used, edited, copied pasted into an online translator etc.
Translation is changing (or interpreting) from one language to another, ie German to English

CONVERSION:
You can either type out the entire text in German (ok for a few lines but very time-consuming for anything more) and run it through a translator.
Or you can use an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) process to turn a printed page into text that you can edit, copy and paste.

Ok so let's assume you have a existing printed page. I will also assume that you have a scanner, but if not, be aware that most modern cellphones have a digital camera capable of taking the quality image required. The page you are going to convert via OCR only needs to be a photo, but the characters do need to be reasonably clear, the better the quality, the better the OCR result will be.

Use this Website to upload the document you want to translate -

http://www.onlineocr.net/

You can upload almost any file which contains text, personally the most of mine are jpg images and they seem to work fine. Of course if you already have the file as a pdf or other text-based format then you can skip OCR altogether. Be sure to check that you have German selected as your input language and enter the 'capture code'.

2: When the website has completed the quick OCR process you should copy the converted text into a text-editor, perhaps your favourite word-processor, or simply use Windows Notepad.

3: Visually do an initial check of the OCR output text for any obvious corrections, remove any line-break hyphens, any incorrect characters caused by marks on the original document, or recognition failures, and any unusual (foreign) characters not correctly converted, ie those with diacritical marks, Umlauts and so on. Provided you have remembered to select German as the original language there should be few failures but correcting these before translation is very important to get the best results.

3: Now copy and paste your corrected text into the Google Translate window ...

https://translate.google.com/

Your translated text will appear alongside the original and you will quickly tell how effective it has been. You can also make any changes here 'on the fly' to the original text to improve the output in the event of errors. This is the reason I suggested using an intermediate text-editor such as Notepad so that if you make a hash of it, just go and recopy the original.

Once you are satisfied with the output you can copy that text and save it if you wish to keep it, print it or just delete if no longer required.

Some tips to improve results include breaking up particularly long words into their component words. The more you work with German words the better you become at recognising them and where two or three words may have been combined to make a single word. This is done much more in German than in English but a good example in our native language comes to mind - "antidisestablishmentarianism". Most of us will probably break this down without difficulty, but for someone less familiar with English it could be quite a challenge but separating words down can make a big difference. Access to a German dictionary is always useful (a book or online).

You should also know how to quickly create the German special characters. On a normal keyboard, just hold the ALT key and type the corresponding code on the keypad to produce the required character...

ü = ALT + 129 or ue
ä = ALT + 132 or ae
Ä = ALT + 142 or AE
ö = ALT + 148 or oe
Ö = ALT + 153 or OE
Ü = ALT + 154 or UE
ß = ALT + 225 or ss

Using the above example most of you will be familiar with seeing Märklin also written as Maerklin. You might also see Strasse (Street) as Straße (thanks Tom for correction). My understanding is that this particular character is not used as commonly as it used to be but you will certainly encounter it in older publications.

Below are the steps with examples that I followed to translate the Forward from the 1995 Koll's Spezial Book

ORIGINAL SCANNED PAGE (jpg)



THE GOOGLE TRANSLATE SCREEN



I'd be interested in the experience of others, and I also suggest that it might be worth sharing some of these items (respecting copyright of course) for the interest of others.

NOTE: If I have any errors in this article, particularly relating to the use of the German Language I apologise. By all means PM me and I will correct as required but please don't go flaming me publicly here for some perceived infraction against the fine Deutshce Mother-tongue. I am sharing my experience as a self-taught amateur only.

And finally, for those interested in the details, below are the stages of the process in terms of the text I worked with.

This is the raw OCR output ... (ie no German characters) - I have edited this in the second block of text further below...

VORWORT 2UR 10. AUSGABE
Der Personenwagen auf dem Titel, mit dem Zuglaufschild Stuttgart/Durksbach, stammt von der "II. Internationale Modelleisenbahn Ausstellung", die 1993 in Stuttgart stattfand. Eine schEne Mee, das bekannte Volkslied von der "Schwab'sche Eisebahn" mit Tex, and Noten beiztellgen and noch eine Ziege dazu. Da mach( es gar nicht, da8 es sick um eine Geis handelt, and nicht wie im Lied um einer Bock.
Koll's Spezialkatalog flihrt solche Modelle auf, die Sie nicht bei jedem Handler an der ngchsten Ecke finder werden. Das sind Sondermodelle oder VVerbemodelle, die in groDen Siiickzahlen - 500 sind normalerweise die Mindeststiickzahl bei Maklin, 200D sind die Ausnahme - oder auch bei besonderen AnIgssen in sehr kleinen Mengen angefertigt werden.
Der zahlenmgeig groBte Bereich in diesem Katalog sind die Werbewagen. Man mi3te sie eigentlich Samrnlermodelle nennen. Denn echte Werbemodelle, das hen Werbegeschenke. wie die Wagen von Pfanni oder Hewlett Packard, sind nur ganz wenige. Weil die echten Werbewagen so schwer zu bekommen sind, enielen sie auf Auktionen and Eisenba.mgrkten nach wie vor crstaunliche Preise. Sammlermodelle sind dagegen in einer solc.n Vielzahl vorhanden, daft manche Sammler das Projekt einer Komplettsammlung aufgeben and sick auf einer Spezialbercich bescluanken. Weil die steigende Zahl der Sammlermodelle diesen Katalog von .1.r zu Jahr umfangreicher gemacht hat, warden, beginnend mit der 90cr Ausgabe. Abbildungen weggelassen. die schon linger in den Vorjahrsausgaben gezeigt warden. Es handelt sick um Fotos der Wagen 4415 der Jahre 1978 bis 1983. In dieser Ausgabe verzichten wir auf die 4415er Wagen der Jahre 1984 bis 1985. Wer sick Mr die Abbildungen dieser Wagen interessiert, kann gltere Katalogausgaben vielleicht noch im Handel finder oder be. Verlag bestellen. Die Jahrgtinge 1989 and 1988 bzw. 1994 sind dafUr zu empfehkn and noch lieferbar. Die vorliegende Ausgabe beschreibt mehr als 2000 Modelle and Sie sehen jet., 1140 Abbildungen. Dennoch soil kein Anspruch auf Vollstandigkeit erhoben werden.
Zum Schlu8 sei alien Eisenba.freunden, . Modellbahnhandlern and der Firma Mlirklin gedankt, die mit linen Hinweisen and Anregungen sowie mit Referenzmodellen mitgeholfen habcn, den Katalog welter zu perfektionieren. Birte untersrtlizen Sie mich auch weiterhin and sager Sie .r Ike Wiinsche.
Joachim Koll

This is my edited version with corrections - this took me about 10 minutes to proof-read and edit - considerably less time than it would take me to retype it

VORWORT ZUR 10. AUSGABE
Der Personenwagen auf dem Titel, mit dem Zuglaufschild Stuttgart/Durklesbach, stammt von der "II. Internationale Modelleisenbahn Ausstellung", die 1993 in Stuttgart stattfand. Eine schöne Idee, das bekannte Volkslied von der "Schwab'sche Eisebahn" mit Text, and Noten beizufügen and noch eine Ziege dazu. Da macht es gar nichts, daß es sich um eine Geis handelt, and nicht wie im Lied um einen Bock.

Koll's Spezialkatalog führt solche Modelle auf, die Sie nicht bei jedem Händler an der nächsten Ecke finden werden. Das sind Sondermodelle oder VVerbemodelle, die in großen Stückzahlen - 500 sind normalerweise die Mindeststückzahl bei Märklin, 2000 sind die Ausnahme - oder auch bei besonderen Anlässen in sehr kleinen Mengen angefertigt werden.

Der zahlenmäßig großte Bereich in diesem Katalog sind die Werbewagen. Man müßte sie eigentlich Sammlermodelle nennen. Denn echte Werbemodelle, das heißt Werbegeschenke. wie die Wagen von Pfanni oder Hewlett Packard, sind nur ganz wenige. Weil die echten Werbewagen so schwer zu bekommen sind, enzielen sie auf Auktionen and Eisenbanmärkten nach wie vor erstaunliche Preise. Sammlermodelle sind dagegen in einer solchen Vielzahl vorhanden, daß manche Sammler das Projekt einer Komplettsammlung aufgeben and sick auf einer Spezialbercich beschränken.

Weil die steigende Zahl der Sammlermodelle diesen Katalog von Jahr zu Jahr umfangreicher gemacht hat, wurden, beginnend mit der 90er Ausgabe. Abbildungen weggelassen, die schon länger in den Vorjahrsausgaben gezeigt wurden. Es handelt sich um Fotos der Wagen 4415 der Jahre 1978 bis 1983. In dieser Ausgabe verzichten wir auf die 4415er Wagen der Jahre 1984 bis 1985. Wer sich für die Abbildungen dieser Wagen interessiert, kann ältere Katalogausgaben vielleicht noch im Handel finden oder beim Verlag bestellen. Die Jahrgänge 1989 and 1988 bzw. 1994 sind dafür zu empfehlen und noch lieferbar. Die vorliegende Ausgabe beschreibt mehr als 2000 Modelle and Sie sehen jetzt 1140 Abbildungen. Dennoch soll kein Anspruch auf Vollständigkeit erhoben werden.

Zum Schluß sei allen Eisenbanfreunden, den Modellbahnhändlern and der Firma Märklin gedankt, die mit Ihren Hinweisen and Anregungen sowie mit Referenzmodellen mitgeholfen haben, den Katalog welter zu perfektionieren. Bitte unterstützen Sie mich auch weiterhin and sagen Sie mir Ihre Wünsche.

Joachim Koll

This is the first-pass translate - here I look for any obvious errors which by now are easy to spot...

FOREWORD 2 FOR 10TH EDITION
The passenger car on the title, with the Zuglaufschild Stuttgart / Durksbach, comes from the "II. Internationale Modelleisenbahnausstellung", which took place in Stuttgart in 1993. A beautiful Mee, the well-known folk song of the "Schwab'sche Eisebahn" with Tex, and notes and a goat to it. There is no way that it is about a geis, and not like a song in the song.

Koll's special catalog lists such models, which you will not find at every handler at the next corner. These are special models or models which, in large quantities - 500 are normally the minimum quantity for Maklin, 200D are the exception - or even in special cases in very small quantities.

The most important area in this catalog are the advertising cars. They could actually be called model models. For real advertising models, the advertising gifts. Such as the cars of Pfanni or Hewlett Packard, are very few. Because the real advertising cars are so hard to get, they still at auction and Eisenba.mgrkten still at astonishing prices. Collector models, on the other hand, are available in a large variety, so that some collectors can give up the project of a complete collection and sund on a special cover. Because the increasing number of collector models has made this catalog more extensive from .1.r, starting with the 90cr edition. Figures are omitted. Which were already shown in the previous editions. It is about photos of the cars 4415 from the years 1978 to 1983. In this issue we renounce the 4415er cars of the years 1984 to 1985. Those who are interested in the pictures of these cars may find more glute catalog issues possibly still in the trade or be. Publisher. The year 1989 and 1988 and 1994 are still available for this purpose. This issue describes more than 2000 models and you see jet., 1140 pictures. Nevertheless, no claim to completeness is required.
Let us conclude that iron is a friend of all; Model railway traders and the company Mlirklin, who have helped with lifeless hints and suggestions as well as with reference models, to perfect the catalog world-wide. Birte, let me continue to sneeze you and sager you .r Ike Wiinsche.
Joachim Koll

And finally, the second-pass translate with errors corrected. I am sure all will agree that while this is not quite "The Queen's English", it is easily understandable and quickly conveys the basic message. It could be improved further, but personally I'm happy with this and I think most of you would be also.


PREFACE TO THE 10TH EDITION

The passenger car on the title, with the Zuglaufschild Stuttgart / Durklesbach, comes from the "II. Internationale Modelleisenbahnausstellung", which took place in Stuttgart in 1993. A nice idea to add the well-known folk song of the "Schwab'sche Eisebahn" with text, and notes and still a goat. It does not matter at all that it is a Geis, and not as in the song around a buck.

Koll's special catalog lists such models, which you will not find at every dealer at the next corner. These are special models or models, which in large quantities - 500 are usually the minimum number of pieces at Märklin, 2000 are the exception - or even on special occasions in very small quantities.

The large number of areas in this catalog are the advertising cars. They should be called collectors' models. For real advertising models, that is advertising gifts. Such as the cars of Pfanni or Hewlett Packard, are very few. Because the real advertising cars are so hard to get, they still aim at amazing prices at auctions and iron markets. Collector models, on the other hand, are available in such a variety that some collectors abandon the project of a complete collection and restrict themselves to a special edition.

Because the increasing number of collector models has made this catalog more extensive each year, starting with the 90th edition. Figures omitted, which have been shown in the previous year's editions for some time. These are photos of cars 4415 from 1978 to 1983. In this issue we will not use the 4415 cars from the years 1984 to 1985. If you are interested in the pictures of these cars, you may find some catalogs for sale or order them from the publisher. The grades 1989 and 1988 and 1994 are recommended and still available. This issue describes more than 2000 models and you can now see 1140 pictures. However, no claim to completeness should be made.

Finally, thank all the Eisenbahnenfreunde, the model railway traders and the company Märklin, who helped with their hints and suggestions as well as with reference models, to perfect the catalog more worldly. Please support me and tell me your wishes.

Joachim Koll

Edited by user 04 January 2017 20:33:44(UTC)  | Reason: Edits, errors & improvements

Why??

With Kolls, you can open the book out so that on an A3 scanner you can scan 2 pages at once. I usually work on the basis that I can scan 100 pages in 30 minutes, so for 600 pages, that's 3 hours.

I usually do my scanning with the TV on so that I can catch up with whatever TV series I'm watching at the time. Thirty minutes a night over 6 to 10 nights will cover it!

Marklin catalogs usually take a little longer as you have to line each of the pages up on the scanner - you can't scan 2 pages at the same time of a Marklin catalog.

Some of us are luckier than others, I just look at the words, translate them in my head and most the time I don't need to. I have a head scanner and printer., don't need any ink cartridges and all works without main power.

the Kolls catalogue is in my opinion the simplest way to learn German, its repetitive, many words are repeated over and over again and this in itself should give reader an inside into German words.

here are some examples: Lok = loco, E - Lok = electric loco, Dampf = steam, Diesel = diesel, Güterwagen = freight carriage or wagon, Personenwagen = Passenger carriage, Kupplung = coupling, Metall = metal, Kunststoff = plastic, Schleifer = slider (pick up shoe), 3 Pol Motor = 3 pole motor, Preis = price, gebraucht = second hand, neu = new, Werbewagen = advertising cars, Händler = dealers

groDen Siiickzahlen = großen Stückzahlen, ngchsten = nächsten, eine schöne Idee = a good idea, beiztellgen = beizufügen, A beautiful Mee = a wonderful idea = eine schöne Idee, They could actually be called model models = they should actually be called collectors models, These are special models or models = Das sind Sondermodelle oder VVerbemodelle = these are special or Advertising models, they still aim at amazing prices at auctions and iron markets = enzielen sie auf Auktionen and Eisenbanmärkten nach wie vor erstaunliche Preise = erzielen sie auf Auktionen und Eisenbahnmärkten nach wie vor erstaunliche Preise = they still fetch amazing prices at auctions and toy fairs

Hi!
Actually "ß" is not a letter, but a ligature of two letters, "s" and "z". The rules for using it have been changed a few years ago.
In Germany it is still "Straße" for street. This ligature is not used in Switzerland, there it always was "Strasse".
In old publications you will find "daß" which is "dass" in newer publications. I have a book from a Swiss author where they use "dasz" instead of "dass". This is very rare, but that is where "ß" came from.

Yep, Eszett or sharp s.
There is a long English article on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F

This might help.

Perfect Phrases in German.pdf (1,065kb) downloaded 51 time(s).

For those that may be interested and are running Windows as the OS, I created some time ago a special windows keyboard (EN-DE) which is the normal US English keyboard layout of keys, that works on a typical QUERTY keyboard, but that maps the various umlauts and other ligatures to ctrl+alt and shft-ctrl+alt characters. Installing this keyboard gets you German plus Euro key mappings that save you having to remember the numeric keypad codes or using other in-software menus.

What you get is that ctrl+alt+o gets you ö
and shft+ctrl+alt+o gets you Ö.
Same for ä and ü
ctrl+alt+s gets you ß
ctrl+alt+$ (ie ctrl+alt+shft+4) gets you €
ctrl+alt+p gets you §

This, of course, relies on the application you are using not already making use of those ctrl+alt keystrokes, which is typically not an issue.

I then configured MS Windows to use that and ONLY that keyboard and made it the default as well (because in other cases, windows would occasionally just switch back to US_EN without my requesting it).

us_en+de - Installer.zip (244kb) downloaded 28 time(s).

as an update to an old thread, these days you can simply point the camera on your phone/tablet at the page to be translated and Google translate will show you the translation in real time.

Works on Android with google translation app.