Talking electronic translators

[Brian Mc]

Greetings Brothers,

My Zhen and I purchased a Besta 9880 I believe it was. Zhen has it in china so not absolutely sure but it has touch screen , english to chinese and vice versa and also speaks the words back to you.
  A good tool but as with all of these devices you must keep the sentences short and very simple.  Also it seems to do a better job going from english to chinese than it does from chinese to english.

It took Zhen and I a very long time to discuss mortgages for instance, and several other topics also get totally lost.  Also when Zhen would write on the screen it seemed to offer other close characters at the bottom so she could pick which one she wanted so all in all usefull tools.  As long as you keep in mind the limitations of them they are good., but they do get confused easily.

Anyway hope this helps somewhat.

Regards,

Zhen and Brian

[brett]

I am now lusting after the Besta CD-637, it looks feature packed plus it has a keyboard rather than the iPhone interface of the MT-7000. That's assuming I can find one for sale. I sent my lady to the electronics store but the assistant didn't know anything about the MT-7000.

[Willy The Londoner]

I went to about 50 stores in Zhuhai before found one that stocked BESTA.  I would not be without mine it is a great add to learning the language because you can practise the phrase immediately before using it in shops etc.

Willy

[rockycoon]

I had one of those electronic translators once.  It was an english-spanish unit.  In the english mode it was ok, but in the spanish mode it just mumbled, griped in the morning and every afternoon it quit working and took a siesta you didn't need to plug it in to recharge it, it had a little hole where you poored beer in the side.  If you poored too many beers in it, it would say things to the lady's in spanish that would get your face slapped or worse.  I gave it to someone I didn't like.  By the way, they have a german model, but it uses too much beer and passes out in your pocket after 10 chorses of ya-ya-ya-ya, um pah pah.  :icon_cheesygrin:

[brett]

Hmm, the Bestas seem to be quite difficult to find. Maybe I'll order one from the US when I get back from China. My lady has a translator, so we can use that. When I'm not with her I'll just point at stuff and draw pictures.

[shaun]

I had one of those electronic translators once.  It was an english-spanish unit.  In the english mode it was ok, but in the spanish mode it just mumbled, griped in the morning and every afternoon it quit working and took a siesta you didn't need to plug it in to recharge it, it had a little hole where you poored beer in the side.  If you poored too many beers in it, it would say things to the lady's in spanish that would get your face slapped or worse.  I gave it to someone I didn't like.  By the way, they have a german model, but it uses too much beer and passes out in your pocket after 10 chorses of ya-ya-ya-ya, um pah pah.  :icon_cheesygrin:

I used to have one of those english-spanish units too. Mine was best at mathematics more than language conversion. The unit especially liked for me to used the multiplication function but it kept subtracting from my wallet too much. I finally had to return it to the manufacturer.

I understand this kind of thing happens in El Paso quite often.  Must be some kind of geographical magnetic disturbance of some kind.

[Vince G]

I understand this kind of thing happens in El Paso quite often.  Must be some kind of geographical magnetic disturbance of some kind.

Yes Shaun it's called the Maxx Factor. :icon_cheesygrin:

[JimB]

I can only speak for Wuhan, Beijing and Xi'an, but every large electronics store has the Besta there.  I checked every time we we would go in one.

[shaun]

I understand this kind of thing happens in El Paso quite often.  Must be some kind of geographical magnetic disturbance of some kind.

Yes Shaun it's called the Maxx Factor. :icon_cheesygrin:

Man!!!! Maxx sure gets around a lot doesn't he. :icon_cheesygrin:

Posted by JimB - Today 11:38
I can only speak for Wuhan, Beijing and Xi'an, but every large electronics store has the Besta there. I checked every time we we would go in one.

Jim,

Do you remember any prices?

Shaun

[Irishman]

I just received delivery of CD-875 and am rather disappointed I have to say.
The only lessons on there are English ones, everything in it is aimed at a Chinese person learning English not the other way round. When you put in an English word it will give you the Chinese and it even has a fancy voice analysis thingy which is fantastic..if you are learning English!
There is no Mandarin spoken for words you search and the few phrases that are on it in Mandarin are spoken at native speed, with a bad recording, and extremely hard to follow.
Expensive lesson learned, I'm gonna give it to Ling as a gift when I go over and get a MT-7000 instead which is aimed at the English market.
I had a look at the CD-637P also and its specs are very similar to the one i got, again its probably best used by a Chinese person not an English speaking one.

[brett]

Let me know what you find out. I thought the MT-7000 and the CD637 were basically the same except the 637 has a keyboard. But I may be wrong.

[Irishman]

The main problem apart from all the lessons being for English learners is that the Chinese dictionary is a bit rubbish too. For example if you look up a Chinese word in English they give you the Chinese character and not the pinyin..which isnt much use if you cannot read Chinese...and if you could read Chinese....see where i'm going with this!
I ordered the MT-7000 linked to earlier already.
Ling is getting an unexpected gift next visit! Its a nice looking thing and actually I could see it being really useful for an English learner. The voice recognition is cool, apparently my pronunciation is over 90% accurate on any word I've looked up haha!

[Voiceroveip]

Ordered an MT-7000 as well, 2-4 days delivery ... from Singapore, thanks for the link by the way. I can deduct that thing from taxes so it's really cheap if you consider 50% tax rate

I gave up on Windows Mobile software, I didn't find anything as complete as this Besta thingy.

[Skip]

Got my mt-7000 on Amazon.com. 300 bucks. I was getting the feeling of getting ripped off, but it is actually a really nice unit. It has lot of useful features. Well...I will see how useful it is in October.

You were getting ripped off

The site I liked LINKED has them for 372.90 SGD = 261.980 USD
Not including shipping though ... which was fairly cheap for standard arifreight.

Edit: coz eye carnt spel

I notice reading a question/answer response from a seller on Ebay, the MT-7000 is only for simplified Chinese, not Mandarin.  Can someone who knows please comment on the accuracy of this statement?

Skip

[Andy]

Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese far as I know they are both mandarin, but the characters look differently.