Language translation service Google Translate has added the ability to automatically detect the source language, streamlining translations when you don’t recognise the language. When you stumble onto a foreign language web site, the most difficult part of using sites like Google Translate is that you often don’t know what the source language is. Google Translate’s new Detect Language feature removes this limitation altogether, so translations are quicker and easier. Apart from the new auto-detection, Google Translate has also added support for nine new languages, and can translate from any one of them to any other. Not bad. Google Translate [via Google Operating System]
Google has integrated translation tools into its Google Talk and GChat interfaces through the use of chat bots. To have a line translated from English to French, for instance, invite en2fr@bot.talk.google.com to chat, then simply chat the line you want to see translated. The bots use Google Translate as their back end, which, as one Blogoscoped commenter notes, has quite a few languages in rough beta, so this tool should mainly be used for casual or on-point word or line translations. For more translation tools and tips, try Wendy’s guide to translation sites.
Merry Christmas, God Jul and 圣诞快乐 [via Google Blogoscoped]
