I need to access the website www.banamex.com which is in Spanish.  I
would like to be able to have the site come up in English without
having to buy a translation program.  Is this possible? How?

Hello sailingtraders-ga,

As you probably know, even the professional translation programs that
you can buy are not perfect.  This is all the more true of a free
translation program.  Still, there are free online "translation
engines", several of which are listed on the Google Directory:

"Science > Social Sciences > Language and Linguistics > Translation >
Tools > Translation Engines"
Google Directory
http://directory.google.com/Top/Science/Social_Sciences/Language_and_Linguistics/Translation/Tools/Translation_Engines/

I tried Free Translation ( http://www.freetranslation.com/ ), but it
requires entry of the URL for each page of the site, rather than
translating automatically.  Systran ( http://www.systransoft.com/ )
requires going back to the home page each time you want to see a new
page.  T-Sail ( http://www.t-mail.com/cgi-bin/tsail ) sometimes
translates other pages of the Bamanex site automatically, but
sometimes does not.  I signed up for LogoMedia's free service (
http://www.logomedia.net/ ), and while it does translate pages on the
site automatically, when I tested it, the Bamanex home page did not
load completely, and the translations were fairly slow.

The best option seems to be Alta Vista's Babel Fish Translation (
http://babelfish.altavista.com/ ).  It uses the Systran software, but
unlike Systran's own site, the Babel Fish engine translates each page
on a web site automatically when you click on the link.  Like the
other translation engines, it does not translate some words on the
Bamanex site that it does not recognize as text, or the pop-up boxes. 
But it is fairly fast, and you will be able to read much of the
Bamanex web site.  (You can open a second window containing the Babel
Fish home page, and copy and paste some of the untranslated text in
order to get a translation of that text.)

I hope that this information is helpful.

- justaskscott-ga


Search term used on Google:

translation

The researcher and commenter answered my question swiftly and
completely.  Thank you.

If you get the Google Toolbar, it includes an option under Page Info
to translate the page you are viewing into English.

Another Researcher (thanks, Pinkfreud!) has noted that Google has a
service that -- like Babel Fish -- translates each page as it is
accessed:

"Language Tools"
Google
://www.google.com/language_tools

You can view this page from the Google Toolbar as well, by clicking on
the Google icon and then on "Language Tools Page".