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I'm writing a story in English but I want to have a character in there that speaks German in which I'm not fluent. Are they any online translation services for artistic pieces? All I see on Google are translation services for business things. I want to be able to just get a few sentences translated. Anybody know any reputable online translation services for writers?

I'm open to paid services available online!

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  • Automated; next-to-impossible. Human; mostly unreliable (not many can carry a 'style' safely through translation). Forum-based; unreliable for the same reasons human-translation-services are, but it's free and you'll be able to discuss what you want with the volunteer user. Downsides of asking on forums, you probably can't use the translation in a commercial work without proper agreement with the translator, and it's not professional, it's by design voluntary and mostly amateur work, but you might get lucky.
    – Mussri
    Jul 6, 2013 at 19:24
  • Stay clear from language-learning, non-forum sites (like livemocha). From experience, I wouldn't call the translations from users their (from most of them, anyway) 'artistic'. Also, you can pick up translate stories in both English and the original language you want, find the 'idea' you're looking for in the English text, online-translate a keyword from the text (it must be a word that stands out) and look for it in the equivalent section in the original book, then compare and patch. Too risky and bothersome, but it worked for me at least once ;)
    – Mussri
    Jul 6, 2013 at 19:28
  • @Mussri: any talented online agencies you know of?
    – verve
    Jul 7, 2013 at 1:03
  • Maybe you can find help in the chatroom of german.stackexchange.com (but you need patience; people do not show up regularly)
    – John Smithers
    Jul 7, 2013 at 22:38
  • You could have a go with a dictionary and grammar primer. Then talk to some native speakers. I'm sure you can meet some online if nothing else! The userbase on addic7ed is pretty friendly (mods note: addic7ed is not a torrent site, just a subtitles one :)
    – micapam
    Jul 8, 2013 at 7:20

2 Answers 2

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You can hire any german translators from the free lancing websites such as elance.com, freelancer.com, odesk.com

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Bing Translator translations are more official than Google's but again result will not satisfy you as because it will not provide artistic translation. Yandex Translate is another option.

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  • How does Yandex compare with Google?
    – verve
    Jul 13, 2013 at 12:14
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    What does "more official" mean in this context? I doubt there is any authoritative organization certifying automated translation systems. Did you mean "more formal"?
    – user5232
    Jul 13, 2013 at 13:41
  • Google gives you alot more choice than Bing and Yandex. But they are lots of inaccurate translations even in word-to-word translations. Bing and Yandex gives you less choice but widely acceptable.
    – TIKSN
    Jul 14, 2013 at 0:29
  • Re Bing and Yandex see my comment re Google translate.
    – Howard Pautz
    Sep 14, 2013 at 1:24

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