I’ve been using the Google translate button on my google toolbar for quite some time, it’s got a whole list of languages that it can attempt a translation from.
Look at how it translates this Norwegian language blog when I click on “translate to English”:
The original page
After translation
Ok, so it’s not perfect but I’m sure you’ll agree that it is a lot easier to figure out what’s being said!
It means I can respond to a post if I have something to add and it always seems to surprise the blog owner that I could understand their article!
I’ve used this a lot more recently due to CommentLuv being picked up by a lot of foreign language blogs like CommentLuv users Andymse in Indonesia and My Lovely Blue Sky in Colorado but written in Malay Chinese
There are German, French, Spanish, Japanese and other language blogs that can be translated by the Google toolbar.
You can even add an option to show a translation from English to a language of your choice when you hover over words, I choose a new language to translate to now and then so when I do my normal web work, I absorb a language via osmosis…. it’s true!, I had it set on German for a few weeks and when i was on a German site I instinctively knew which was the about page link and which button meant “Support”
Installation
Easy peasy, just download the Google toolbar for your browser.
Visit the settings/options
And choose the language you want to learn by Osmosis!
26.10.08 2:42 pm
I just saw the perfect wordpress plugin here, did’nt you? I think I will explore the possibility to add some kind of link in each article that will make Google translate it to english, for all those non-vikings
And not only is it useful, it’s funny to see how it translates as well!
#126.10.08 7:11 pm
Thanks Andy, I will try…
Actualy, I intended to make my blog in dual languages, English and Indonesian, but learn English was very very hard to me. I will try and try again, -and hope Google Translate can help me, hehehe…
I have a best friend from England, Claire A Lewis, she stayed for 3 months in Indonesia, I learn English, she learn Indonesian, but we -often- talked in Tarzan language… ha ha ha…
*Forgive me, about my English…
Andy MSE´s last blog post..Serabi Solo
#226.10.08 7:41 pm
Mia:I think there are quite a few translate this plugins out there, it’s not always perfect but it helps me on my commentluv travels
Andy: Claire A Lewis? I know her … just kidding
I have noticed a lot of Indonesian blogs get a huge amount of comments. Maybe bloggers will be the new celebrities over there?
#326.10.08 8:36 pm
Yeah, I actually found a few at wordpress.org, will check them out for sure! This can help av lot of bloggers I think!
mia´s last blog post..Sammenlign inntekten til alle på Facebook!
#426.10.08 8:49 pm
Thanks so much! I had that feature on my FF already and didn’t even know it.
Heather (Woman in Training)´s last blog post..Our day at the pumpkin patch/apple farm
#527.10.08 1:29 am
Andy, thanks for your link in the post but I would like to clarify something. We are actually Malaysian Chinese that are currently staying at Colorado Springs, Colorado US. Appreciate if you can updates the post. Thank you.
Kuen Hoong´s last blog post..Feedjit Live Traffic Map vs ClustrMaps
#627.10.08 2:52 pm
This is useful information to be filed away as I do not visualize any real use for me in the foreseeable future.
Nicole Price´s last blog post..Save Money this Halloween
#727.10.08 3:17 pm
Kuen: sorry about that, I had a few chinese language blogs open at once and must have read from one and pasted from the other. fixed in the post now
#827.10.08 6:40 pm
@Andy: Thanx again for the help. Thought I’d stop by and say congrats on the WPMU Plugin contest! Definitely deserved! ^^
xJAYMANx´s last blog post..Blog 171 > From Drunk to Punk Trooper
#927.10.08 8:00 pm
This really opens up a lot of possibilities. Although it is not perfect it is really impressive and hopefully they will continue to get more accurate. We’ll definitely have to think about how to leverage this.
John Edwards´s last blog post..Silver Spring Real Estate
#1028.10.08 11:51 am
Hello Andy! That is quite interesting but is there a plugin in wordpress that allows your visitor to click a link and voila your whole page is translated to another language?
Coz I am planning to implement something like that so I dont need to write an extra page for the Norwegian version of my blogposts. Since it is already hard maintaining one blog.
#1128.10.08 2:37 pm
Being the kind of guy that wants to learn a million different languages, this post has been immensely helpful.
Thanks for dropping by my blog. Wouldn’t mind a link to those Electromagnetism videos you talked about.
Cheers.
#1228.10.08 2:44 pm
jayman: thanks mate!
Jon: not everything needs to used for leverage!
Chas: There are oodles of plugins to do this at wordpress.org
Solomon: I’ll see if I can dig out the links from my history
#1330.10.08 9:44 am
Yeah I saw one now and implemented it on my blog but still I hated the translation. In English, even the words are a bit jumbled we can still somewhat comprehend it but not in the case of the Norwegian language.
Charles Ravndal´s last blog post..The Bitch Is Back!
#1430.10.08 11:09 am
I want to be able to respond in the language the blog is created in… wouldn’t it be cool to type in english in to your comment and have it come out in german on a german blog… unfortunately language doesn’t translate perfect but at least it’s communication!
#1530.10.08 2:58 pm
is there a plugin that can actually translate inside my blog, just by clicking on an english flag (or something like that). I havent found any good plugins yet…
mia´s last blog post..Jamie Oliver til Nintendo!
#1631.10.08 2:37 pm
This sounds interesting. I would love to install and try it. Thanks for the useful information! Hope to see your new posts soon.
#1702.11.08 3:08 pm
I’m torn – on the one hand, it is convenient, and IF you understand that machine translation is far from perfect, rendering only the gist of the information, it’s…okay. But many people do not understand this at all. They think the machine is God.
And it raises issues of copyright violation. I don’t allow my free articles to be translated. When I find translations posted elsewhere, I demand that they be removed. Because they are an imperfect rendering of my writing and they ARE “derivative works,” the creation of which I have not granted to anyone by posting anything, anywhere. I actually do care that my writing be translated by a skilled, professional HUMAN translator.
If you wonder why, try taking a block of English text, running it through Google from English to, oh, Korean – then BACK again to English. This is particularly funny if the passage involves anything about writing on paper. International incidents have been started over less. Imagine what happens to political posts or social criticism when run through a machine translator.
Holly Jahangiri´s last blog post..Kids Are the Future: Help Me Help Them!
#1806.11.08 8:14 am
I really found Google’s translate tool useful when I had to make a few background checks and research for an eastern European client I had.
archondigital´s last blog post..Theme Development: Where It All Began
#1911.11.08 1:11 am
That’s an amazing feature! every website should have this installed. the web will break the language barriers and create world harmony
Anti Scams Product Reviews´s last blog post..Is Cash4Gold a Scam?
#2030.11.08 5:26 pm
Even if you don’t have any practical need for it it’s worth giving it a go just for the hilarious results it can generate.
#2122.12.08 2:30 pm
[...] Fiddyp Learn a Language by Osmosis (mannen bak den populære wp pluginen Commentluv bruker min blogg som eksempel til å vise hvordan man kan oversette blogger ved hjelp av Google Translate) [...]
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