Google’s web apps can translate uploaded Microsoft Office documents, but with many caveats involving file sizes and HTML formatting. DocTranslator, a Java-powered web app, runs your Office and text documents through Google Translate and sends them back with the same formatting. More »
Using its vast compendium of voice and translation data, Google appears to be working toward a semi-real-time, or “speech-to-speech”, translation technology for future phone models, according to The Times UK. More »
Need a quick MP3 file of a certain saying to goof on a co-worker? Whatever your needs, Google Translate can be used as an impromptu text-to-speech converter, providing a handy MP3 file of your chosen words. More »
Google Translate added a few features to its main web home, including instant translations as you type. What’s really helpful is a bit more tucked away: phonetic pronunciations for non-Roman alphabets, like Chinese and text-to-speech pronunciations for translating to English. More »
Google hasn’t made it official, but PC World/IDG News Service and the Google Operating System blog are totally convinced that Gmail will get multi-language, on-the-fly translation of their email messages at an event in Brussels to celebrate Gmail’s fifth birthday. The screenshot above, hot off Google’s servers, seems to give away the meaning of Google’s event description as having “a European multilingual angle.” As soon as it happens, you know we’ll try it out; in the meantime, we’re wondering if Gmail has anything else in store to release today.
Google Operating System points out a minor but useful change at Google: its Translate option is now available from the main ‘More’ dropdown on the home screen for most international Google home pages (including google.com.au), so you can translate simply by typing a phrase in the search box and selecting ‘Translate’. With that said, the language detection still doesn’t always work (in the example pictured, Google identified the phrase as French but offered back the identical phrase as the translation into English), but it does save a few steps. For another novel way to use Google for translations, try using Image Search instead. Google Translate, Added to the Navigation Menu [Google Operating System]
We’ve been all about Google Translate ever since it introduced automatic language detection, but language detection isn’t the default, and even then, it could be streamlined. Enter the To English bookmarklet.
Language translation site Nice Translator uses Google Translate’s results but wraps them in a more dynamic front end that offers multiple translations as-you-type. Type your phrase into Nice Translator, which auto-detects what language you’re inputting, and watch as it lists multiple translations, in real-time, as you type. Google Translate’s page isn’t as nice-looking or dynamic as Nice Translator, since it requires you to choose both the original and translation language and manually refresh the page. For more language fun, check out the best online language tools for word nerds. Nice Translator [via Webware]
Online language translation app Frengly autodetects the source language of text and quickly translates it into your language of choice. Just paste any piece of text into Frengly, hit translate, and let Frengly take care of the rest. Frengly actually plugs into the Google Translate API to both detect the language and to translate the text, so you may wonder: Why use Frengly? Ultimately it’s about speed and ease of use. Google Translate requires you to choose the auto-detect option every time you head to the page, which means you lose a step in what should be a feature that shaves a step off translation. Likewise, it’s easier to select your destination language once from one of the many buttons rather than dig through the drop-down menu. So while Frengly isn’t all that innovative on its own, you can think of it as a nicer front-end to Google Translate.
Frengly [via Download Squad]The Google service that’s super handy when you’re travelling internationally (or just headed to multi-lingual city), Google Translate, is now available for the iPhone. Just hit up translate.google.com in mobile Safari; check the screenshot to see it in action.
