Lingoes (program)

Lingoes is a single-click multi-lingual translation software program released as a freeware translation utility. Lingoes is often compared to Babylon dictionary^[1][2] due to similarities in the GUI, same functionalities and most importantly being free of charge.

Features and Expandability

Lingoes has the ability to add new dictionaries and encyclopedias to widen its usability. Online encyclopedias like Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and Baidu Baike as well as leading dictionaries like Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, WordNet, MacMillan English Dictionary,Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary and many other cross-English dictionaries i.e. Arabic, Armenian, Dutch, French, German, GreeK, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish (more over 80 languages as stated in Lingoes' official website).^[3]

Additional tools, termed as appendices in the program, include a currency converter, weights and measure units converter, international time zones converter, plus the periodic table of elements, a scientific calculator, Traditional Chinese & Simplified Chinese conversion utility, Base64 encode / decode utility, (MD4, MD5 and SHA-1 algorithms) and many other tools that can be added through the website.

The program has the ability to pronounce words and install additional text-to-speech engines available for download also through Lingoes' website.

Lingoes also offers a whole-text translation ability using online translation service providers like Google Translation, Yahoo! Babel Fish Translation, SYSTRAN, Cross Language, Click2Translate and others. Lingoes also, offers various ways to translate a text, for examples, via a mouse-over, or by Double clicking the selected text, options not available with Babylon pro.

Criticism

• The typical similarity of Lingoes to Babylon has been viewed, by some,^[4] as lack of innovation for a new translation software.
• The use of dictionary brand names like Oxford's, Longman's, Cambridge's, Merriam-Webster's, Collin's and others without any reference in Lingoes' website to the legitimacy of this use is suspicious of an illegal act.
• Intended platform limitation to Windows^[5][6] can be viewed as a similar Babylon step to a migration from a freeware to a payware program.
• Lingoes lacks the ability for auto-correction of misspelled words or offering suggestions.

See also

• Comparison of machine translation applications
• QwickUp (alternative online service)

References