French to English Free Translation

French to English free translation is being sought by millions of people and the reasons why are not difficult to understand. After English, French is the second most taught language in the world.

It is spoken on five continents by about 128 million people living in France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, and Africa. Likewise, English is considered the leading global language, studied by populations everywhere on the map. It's not surprising, then, that English to French and French to English translation has become a booming business.

Who can benefit from French to English free translation?

• Anyone who wants to become fluent in either language
• Anyone who wants to pick up some basic conversational skills
• Students who need help understanding their French textbooks
• Anyone trying to learn some romantic French phrases for their anniversary or date
• Business people who need a website translated
• Anyone preparing for a trip to Paris or to any other France destination

If you have access to the Internet, you're in luck. Due to the widespread popularity of foreign languages, most of the main search engines now offer free language translation services to their users. For French to English free translation, Google offers Google translate; Yahoo! Search offers Babel Fish; and Live Search offers Windows Live Translator. Many of these resources also translate text in a foreign language back to English. How does it work? Simply choose the text you wish to have translated, and copy/paste or type it into the translation box. Select from which language to what language you want the text translated and in a matter of seconds the translation will be displayed. Better yet, you can even type/paste the URL of a web page and the whole page will be translated.

However even though these services are free and highly accessible, the translated texts provided are frequently not accurate. Although they share the same alphabet, English differs vastly from French in terms of grammar, sentence structure, tenses, word order, and more. This is why most texts can't be directly translated and why French-English translation, like most language translations, is a complicated and tricky business.

So what other alternatives do you have when it comes to French to English free translation? Here a few tried and true tips from the language experts:

• Take a visit to your local library, where you will find many books on learning French, including common French expressions and sayings. Many popular children's books have already been translated into French, and these books tend to have simple sentence structure and are fairly short in length. And of course, at the library you have access to free French-English dictionaries.
• If you already own an iPad, you might be surprised to learn that iPhone has now provided its users with the iSpeak French app, an automatic translator. Simply enter the target words or phrases, press "Translate", and then the "Speak it" button, an added bonus which teaches you how to speak and sound like a native!