Translation tools details

Full Text Translation
  • You can type in your own random sentences.
  • You can type on the virtual keyboard.
  • The other person can type on the virtual keyboard, in his/her own characters.
  • FTT isn't available for every language pair. Look at the specs chart for the language pair you are interested in.

Question: "Does the full text translation tend to be too confusing to be useful?"

Answer: Not at all. You simply write concise sentences.

 Full text translation sample in Spanish

For example, you might normally say, "Do you think you might want to go to the waterfront with me this evening, maybe a little after supper?"

With FTT, you might type in, "Go to waterfront?" Then you might point to your watch and hold up 6 fingers for the time. It takes only seconds to type that.

The other person might respond by nodding, by holding up fingers for a different time, or by typing in a message. For example, "Go to museum." In response to your disappointed look, "Waterfront dangerous in evening."
 

Dictionary

  • Advanced word recognition allows you to find a word just by typing the first few letters.
  • MorphoFinder helps you find source words for English past participles, gerunds, and plural forms.
  • The "Slang lock" function allows you to toggle between "include" or "exclude" (lock in/lock out) slang in the dictionaries.
  • Pictured dictionary (for basic words, more info below).
  • English phonetic transcription.
  • Real human voice for the words in the dictionary(only on specific languages; see specs tab for applicability).
  • Vector Ultima spell-checker.
  • The WordNet Princeton edition dictionary of modern English has over 70,000 head words and detailed explanations.

Phrasebook
  • The audiophrasebook was recorded with professional native narrators. Consequently, it delivers superb voice output.
  • The "You may hear" function helps another person select an answer from a list of canned answers. For instance, having picked the topic "In a restaurant," you choose a phrase. The waiter wants to reply to that phrase. You then select the "You may hear" option listed in the restaurant category (there is such an option in each category). The waiter can select the answer from the list provided.
  • A "phrase" is usually a complete sentence. It's called a "phrase" out of tradition.
 900 Series Pocket Electronic Language Translator Spanish Phrasebook Sample
Sentence Builder

This handy, easy to use feature is a word substitution tool for existing phrases in the phrasebook. You don't actually "build sentences" with it. Here's how you use Sentence Builder:

  • Choose a phrase.
  • Tap on a hyperlinked word in the phrase. This brings up a short list.
  • Tap a word from the list to replace the hyperlinked word with the one you tapped.
 
Pictured Dictionary

The talking 183-language Picture Dictionary has real human voice pronunciation for all words. You can select any source language and any target language, giving you the ability to translate in any direction between any of 183 languages.

Either person can look up a word and:

  • Show the other person a pictorial representation.
  • Show the word (in text) in the target language.
  • Pronounce the word in natural human voice.

It's simple, quick, and clear.

Never be lost in translation, no matter where you are. This free bonus feature is an Ectaco exclusive. It allows you to look up word translations between any two of the following languages:

  • Achinese, Afrikaans, Akan, Alabama, Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Aymara, Azerbaijani
  • Balinese, Bari, Bashkir, Basque, Batak, Belarusian, Bikol, Breton, Buginese, Bulgarian, Buryat
  • Catalan, Cebuano, Chechen, Chinese Mandarin, Choctaw, Chorti, Chuang, Chukchi, Chuvash, Creole, Crimean, Croatian, Czech
  • Dakota, Danish, Dungan, Dutch, Dyerma (Zarma)
  • Efik (Ibibio), English, Erzya (0xda), Esperanto, Estonian, Evenki, Ewe
  • Fang, Faroese, Farsi, Fijian, Finnish, Foochow, French, Frisian, Fulani
  • Gagauz, Galician, Gan, Ganda, Georgian, German, Greek, Guarani
  • Hainanese (Min Nan), Hausa, Hebrew, Hiligaynon (Ilonggo), Hindi, Hmong, Hunanese (Xiang), Hungarian
  • Icelandic, Igbo, Ilocano, Indonesian, Italian
  • Japanese, Javanese
  • Kalenjin, Kamba, Kaqchikel, Karaim, Kara-Kalpak, Karen, Kashubian, Kazakh, Khakas, Khanty, Kikuyu (Gikuyu), Kinyarwanda, Kirghiz, Kisii (Gusii), Komi, Korean, Koryak, Krymchak, Kumyk, Kurdish, Kusaal
  • Latin, Latvian, Lingala, Lithuanian, Lombard, Luo (Dholuo)
  • Macedonian, Madurese, Makassar, Malay, Maltese, Manado, Mansi, Maori, Mapudungun, Mari, Masai, Medanese, Minangkabau, Moksha, Mongolian
  • Nanai, Navajo, Ndebele, Ninglish, Nivkh, Norwegian, Nyanja (Chichewa)
  • Ojibwa
  • Panay, Papiamento, Polish, Portuguese, Provencal
  • Quechua
  • Romanian, Romansh, Runasimi, Rundi, Russian
  • Samoan, Sango, Sara, Scots, Sepedi, Serbian, Shona, Sichuanese, Sidamo, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sotho, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swati, Swedish
  • Tagalog, Tajik, Tatar, Teochew, Teso, Thai, Tongan, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen
  • Uyghur, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek
  • Venda, Vietnamese, Winnebago, Wolof
  • Xhosa
  • Yakut, Yao, Yolngu, Yucatec
  • Zulu.