Best way to translate Chinese?

Question

Hi everyone. I ordered a product from the internet and it arrived yesterday. It came with an instruction manual, but it's all in Chinese. I have tried to use google translator, but I don't know how to type the Chinese characters that appear in the manual. 

I tried to install Chinese simplified on windows so I can type, but I don't know what character sequence on the keyboard makes the symbol I want to appear.

I have a scanner, but I don't think an image can be decoded to text unless one of you knows an OCR program that will do this.

My last resort was to go to the chinese restaurant I order from once a week and ask for help.

I'm particularily worried about the section with big !!! caution symbols, like if you don't follow this exactly, you will break it. 

Any suggestions?

Thanks everyone in advance.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Hi friend!  maybe I can do a favor for you sir? for I'm a native Chinese speaker and graduated from a high school in China. would you send that instruction manual to me please? let's see what  I can do for you, my address is huyuzhe47@yahoo.com.cn. good luck to you!
 Or  you can also download “搜狗” from the Internet, and buy  a Chinese dictionary, and search for characters which printed on the instruction manual, each character have "pin ying"(tone symbol to Chinese characters) with it in the dictionary. samplely input "pinying" into"搜狗(sou gou)”it will be display the contrasted Chinese characters on you computer, and then download the " 金山词霸（jin shan ci ba)”to you computer,
input the characters into it(金山词霸）it will translate these characters into English for you automaticly.

longliveabcdefg · Answer

If you know a little Chinese already, you could copy the characters and paste them to the online translator.  This would be a problem if you do not understand Chinese at all because for each English word, it can be made up of 1,2,3 or 4 Chinese characters and you don't know which set of characters to copy for translation.  Results from translating whole sentences often don't make sense.  Of course you can post the content on Y/A, but I find most of the translation here unreliable.  

Because it's an instruction manual, you should have it translated precisely.  I think going to the Chinese restaurant is the best solution for you here if you trust the restaurant people there know enough English to do a good job.  The other alternative is look for Chinese customers at the restaurant who speak fluent English, I am sure you can find qualified Chinese/English translators there who can help you.

Anonymous · Answer

The first 2 methods you mentioned will not work.

Either:
1. Scan it and put is on internet or Yahoo Answers and ask for help in translating it.
2. Go to the Chinese restaurant and ask them.  But take note that there is 2 ways to write Chinese character i.e. Traditional or Simplified and not everyone can read both.
3. Go on internet and look for an English manual

nickname · Answer

I suggest you find somebody to translate it for you. Any of the other technical solutions will be very laborious and prone to error and misinterpretation (even if you manage to translate the individual characters, you may not translate the sense of the text).

Maybe you can go to the website for the product and find an English version of the manual?

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Best way to translate Chinese?

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