Online scientific data sources

The following are a list of free scientific sources available online. The first one is called scirus. It’s a search engine on scientific information bringing together several academic websites providing authentic and reliable research sources as well as data banks.
scirus
Free archive of life science journals : http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/
Free journal access : www.openj-gate.com
Publication division of American chemical society : www.pubs.acs.org
Bilingual website on geography : http://www.cybergeo.eu/
Technical and scientific translation requires precision and above all the right term. It is all the more important to find the correct term from a dependable source. Often translators loose a lot of time looking for a justifiable choice. Happy searching!

MIT openwarecourse

Michel Drucker is a very popular and well respected T.V anchorman in France. Every Sunday he hosts a programme called “Vivement Dimanche prochain”. It’s a kind of a talk show with celebrities and entertainers including book and movie reviews. While watching the programme, I got a very interesting piece of news, namely the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has opened up a host of its courses online. One can freely access thousands of course content offered by this prestigious Institute. Here’s the link:
mitopencourseware. By entering keywords such as translation studies, linguistics etc. it is possible to read up the course contents, handouts and even solve exercises.

Wordnet

I heard about Wordnet during a seminar in the University some 18 months ago. Since then I have been using the window version of this incredible search tool. It’s handy, fast and user-friendly. The following link leads to the online search page. The homepage provides a downloadable version for both linux and window os.
wordnet

 

Termscience

Recently I came across a couple of internet sources in the technical area. The first website is called Termscience. Well, it’s a heaven for all those involved in scientific studies and not merely the translators. This terminological database is authentic and reliable source with hosts such as the CNRS and INRA in France. The home page is in French. But the link leading to the ” ressources terminologiques” contains a veritable mine of information on subjects ranging from agriculture to zoology. Here is the direct link:Termscience
Further forays in the website revealed various English language links. Not surprising since almost 70 % of the worlds scientific literature is written in English. Going through the pages I alsocame across an interesting website called:Metamodel ,though it is not scientific in nature.

Language exchange communities

Recently there has been a spurt in the number of language exchange communities. Most of these web sites belong to the web 2.0 generation and offer opportunities to learn languages with native speakers in various countries: often free of cost. Some of them also support social networking features. One can meet language enthusiasts from other countries and mutually help each other to pick up or polish up the linguistic skills. The basic idea is borrowed from the pen pal system.

I have personally not tried any of the websites, but nevertheless I am a bit apprehensive about the integrated babel fish translator in many of them. Apparently the machine translator is capable of translating more than 34 languages and includes translators like “Apni Urdu translator”. Here are a few interesting websites:

http://www.speakmania.com

http://www.mylanguageexchange.com

http://www.huitalk.com/

http://www.polyglot-learn-language.com

source: Panorama du web by Isabelle Dremeau