I have been following the Google Translations API rather closely with remarks already in this blog. But recently Google made Translations for Web pages so easy to do it seemed worth while to try it out.The screen capture to the left can be seen in the upper right corner of this blog.Go ahead and try it out. But remember if you have landed on the Keep an Open’s home page it is quite big – so the translation may take 4-10 seconds to do.
Adding translate capabilities took only 8-10 lines of JavaScript code which can be inserted into a WordPress blog which is widget-enabled with great ease. Even non-widget enabled blog themes are fairly easy to change – just go to the Theme Editor and change the sidebar.php file made available to you.
And look what Google has done for you. Not only is the Web page translated but as you navigate in the blog, Google translates all the subsequent pages as well. You can stop the translations by clicking the Cancel button in Translate bar at the top of the Web page.
But there is more. I was trying to work out a way to show my foreign readers what the original English was in case the translation was a bit shaky[I understand/read French and German like a Spanish cow and the translations in these 2 languages seem reasonable, missing the idiomatic phrases and some technical jargon].
Whoa – that feature is built into Google translate right now . Just hover your mouse over the paragraph you want to see in the original English and a hint box appears with the English text. Thus Google Translate is another example of the tidal wave of very good software that Google is delivering this year. Just check out this Business Week slide show for 20 more examples. Google is on a roll for the next few years to become preemptively the software vendor whose tools and utilities are most used on the Web. And just about every other software player [read Microsoft among others] is a spectator. Google will get users first, then monetize with advertising, premium services or tie-ins with 3rd parties. Google Translate is just one example.