This morning I was looking for a procedure and kept coming across papers that referenced the same 1959 Helvetica paper. While I have no problem with older literature, reading experimental's written in German gives me nightmare flashbacks to my undergraduate days and the four semesters of German language study required to earn a chemistry degree. (Six semesters in my case, but only four semesters of classes) Just as German made me think about changing my major, the prospect of trying the navigate an experimental with my long lost Scientific German skills made me think about trying another method.
Thankfully, just when I was about to put on my lederhosen and dig into the experimental one of my labmates suggested I try
Google Translate. A quick copy and paste, a few corrections of OCR errors, a bit of educated guessing, and some revision of wording later and I have a complete experimental in English.
It makes me wonder if I can get rid of my Fortran textbook and those spare punchcards. (That's a joke. If you kids don't know about Fortran or punchcards, GET OFF MY LAWN!)
T.S. Hall
The google translator tool has come in handy for me lately as my references get older. I can even translate some Chinese words, however, German is more common.
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