Nathan

Featured, Internet

Always wanted to learn a new language? Easy, but learning to speak it is another thing. Now, you’ll find it a lot easier to do both using Google Translate. There are various tools out there for translating text, such as the Babelfish. What sets Google apart? It’s new features, which I will show you.

Real-time Translation
Now, you don’t need to hit that Translate button. The tool translate the text as you type.

Automatic Input Transliteration
For Arabic, Persian or Hindi, as you type the phonetic counterpart of the word in English, the local language counterpart is automatically displayed after you type each word. Example:

namaste = ??????

Romanized Characters
Write and speak like a native. The translation for non-Roman languages includes Romanized characters to allow you to speak the language using phonetics, like in the example/image above.

Text-to-Speech
Translating any language to English allows you to listen to the words being spoken, when you click on the speaker icon.

Quick Demo via YouTube

Trying it Out

Using this phrase, “Would you like a cup of tea?” on Google Translate:

?????

On Yahoo Babelfish:

????????

Using the first paragraph in this entry, translating to Chinese and to Filipino using Google Translate:

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Babelfish????????????????????????

Laging nais na matuto ng isang bagong wika? Madali, ngunit sa pag-aaral na magsalita ito ay isa pang bagay. Ngayon, makikita ninyo ito ng isang pulutong mas madali na gawin ang parehong gumagamit ng Google Translate. May mga iba’t-ibang mga kasangkapan lumitaw diyan para sa pagsasalin ng teksto, tulad ng Babelfish. Ano ang mga hanay ng Google bukod? Ito ay mga bagong katangian, na kung saan ako ay magpapakita sa iyo.

And the same paragraph using Yahoo Babelfish:

???????????? ??????????????? ??? you’ ll?????????????Google??? ??????????????????Babelfish? ????Google??? It’ s???????????

Verdict

Based on a limited sample, I’d say it’s pretty accurate, esp. with Chinese text. I guess the system has much information and sample data in Chinese, and not much in Filipino. So for more widely used languages, the translation will be more accurate. The translation is available in 51 languages, which comprise of around 98% of the Internet users. For a machine translation, it’s pretty good. What’s good is that you can contribute a better translation.

(first seen on Google Blog)

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