Monday, March 1, 2010

Google Chrome Translation Feature

Five years ago it was mentioned here that if Google would ever release their own browser, they could built translation into it seamlessly. Two years ago, Google did indeed release a browser, and now that browser includes a translation feature*. When visiting the German blog Spreeblick, for instance, a header note will expand reading: “This page is in [German]. Would you like to translate it? [Translate] [Nope]”. If you already speak e.g. German, you can click “Options → Never translate German”.

The experience is still not babelfish-seamless, perhaps because the Google machine translation isn’t perfect yet... there’s no option yet to “always translate this language”. Once their translator is near flaw free, Google could allow such an option, or go further and immediately translate foreign languages (and simply offer a small info icon somewhere on the page after the fact, at least until civilization gets accustomed to auto translations).

Ich weiß jetzt allerdings nicht genau, was passiert, wenn nur ein Teil der Seite in einer Sprache ist, die der Leser – du zum Beispiel – nicht versteht. Ist Chrome klug genug, die Übersetzung gezielt für diesen Teil anzuschmeißen?

*I’m using version 4.1x beta

[Thanks Jason!]

Google Chrome Translation ... by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (8)

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