Babylon NG

Overview

Babylon is a powerful translation tool that offers multiple options to translate words, texts, documents and web pages. All you need to do is click on any text in any application and Babylon will display relevant translations in a pop-up window. It also displays conversion data without interrupting your work.

Paid version offers 77 languages, while free trial version offers 4 dictionaries. It is a perfect language learning software awarded for most popular desktop translator with over hundred million downloads. The tool functions both online and offline. You get the results in a small compact window which does not interrupt your working process.

Premium features include a grammar checker, full text translations, human voice for pronunciation and numerous popular dictionaries, like Oxford, Britannica, Webster, Duden, Pons, Wahrig, Michaelis, Van-Dale and many more.

For several years now, Babylon aspires for leadership on translation software market, providing advanced, smart and multitasking translation software for students, teachers and professional translators worldwide. Babylon provides accurate translations, great program integration and more useful features we will discuss in the Pros section.

Installation

This software is compatible with XP, Vista and Windows 7. Installation requires your utmost attention. You will be offered quick or custom installation. Choose custom and un-check all options you have in the wizard, such as making Delta search your default search engine, etc. If you opt for Quick installation, Delta add-ons and plug-ins will affect your default browser and registry keys in your PC.

Interface

The menu on the top right corner offers a brief introduction to software's interface. The drop-down toolbar is self-descriptive in all ways. You will easily find all features you need. The translator is easy to navigate and use. The translator's main page displays buttons to upload files to translate or perform a spell-check. Main page also offers a drop-down menu to select language pairs.

The tool is also customizable. You can select the language toolbar to be displayed at the top of the interface and show a quick search option for any language. Once you enter a word, you can choose the target language and the dictionary. You can also find a pronunciation guide, a perfect tool for students.

Pros

Text translation in 33 languages is simple, fast and the translation quality is accurate for related languages, like English-Spanish pair. You can translate a web page by copy-pasting the web's link into translator's interface. You get results from the most trusted publishers, as well as Wikipedia articles available in 25 languages. Babylon converts currencies, measure units and time. It is compatible with all Windows versions, including Win 8, both 32- and 64-bit. Program integration allows you to add MS Word documents (.docx, .pdf) directly into the translator without converting them. In case, compatibility is unavailable (like with Open Office documents), you can simply copy and paste the text directly into translator's window. Another nifty feature is text-to-speech pronunciation tool with customizable playback speed. Grammar checker is another powerful feature that check text's integrity in terms of style, vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, Passive Voice, etc.

Cons

Quick installation comes with add-ons and plug-ins to your default browser that are very difficult to get rid of. If uninstalled, the browser's settings are preserved. To get rid of them, you will have to manually check all browser tools, options, default start page and search engine, as well as additional folders that do not delete with the program's uninstall. Both SpyBot SD and AVG scans showed multiple spyware intrusions as a result. So, choose custom installation.

The free version comes with a limited number of translations, after which you are prompted to upgrade to a paid version, $10/month.

For language pairs of different language families or different sentence structures, for example English-German, translations come fairly good.

Alternatives

Google Translator Toolkit, easy-to-use, intuitive, comes with Wikipedia articles, multiple language pairs, and the best part is you do not need to download and install it. It's also free of charge.

Conclusion

Wide selection of options to translate texts, documents and web pages makes this application a reliable handy tool for those who learn and work with foreign languages. It provides accurate translations for closely related languages, pronunciation guide and document translation. However, this feature was not evaluated as it is not included in the free version.