InstantTranslate

InstantTranslate is an automatic translation application for the Mac. It uses Microsoft Translator as a translation engine.

This is not the best machine translation engine around, and I could check that with my first translation using this tool. The app supports 35 different languages for translations and it is localized in a few languages as well. It has an automatic language detection feature which saves you time in specifying which is the source language. All you do is select the target language and the application will carry out the translation.

InstantTranslate opens a transparent black window where it places translations. It resembles the window that is opened when you use the Quick View feature in Finder. To translate a text, you simply select it, right click on this selection and select the InstantTranslate feature. The translated text will appear on the Translation window.

The quality of the translations that I tried left a lot to be desired. I translated the developer description of InstantTranslate into Spanish, and it hardly made any sense. There were grammatical errors all over the place. Of course, I could understand the text, but it wasn't a good translation, not by far.