Google Chrome Finally Gets Webpage Translation Right

There have been a number of attempts over the years to create browser add-ons that automatically translate entire webpages into various languages. If you have used any of them, you know that most are less than user-friendly, often produce strange formatting issues and—most importantly—create bad translations. Not so with Chrome’s new “Google Translate” extension.

How Does it Work?

While Google’s translations are still far form perfect, they do tend to be surprisingly accurate (if you read English and Japanese, you can see for yourself in the screenshots below).  They accomplish this linguistic feat through creative application of probability rules and massive amounts of computing power. While other translation tools use complex grammar rules and  dictionaries, Google’s computers simply imitate humans. The company continually feeds their translation software United Nations documents already translated into multiple languages by professional human translators.

Very Nice…How Much?

Like all things Google, Chrome (and its myriad extensions) are free of charge. Though in truth, nothing is really free: every time you translate a page you are helping Google improve its service and providing more opportunities to show you ads…

Installing Google Chrome

Download Google Chrome
Download the Google Translate extension for Google Chrome
Browse for other Google Chrome Extensions

Google Translation in Action

Here are some screenshots taken of a PC World article. I simply clicked the Google Translate icon, selected “Japanese” from the “Translate to” drop-down menu, and poof, the whole page (articles, titles, menus, and all) was instantly translated into readable Japanese.

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Copyright © 2010 by John Fotheringham. For more tips, tools, and tech for Mastering ANY Language, go to LanguageMastery.com

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