translation

Google has announced the launch of the Google Translator toolkit, an editor designed to give translators an easy means of bringing the "human touch" to machine translation, which everybody knows is often flawed.

We English speakers are truly lucky that so much of the world is willing to accommodate us, learning enough of the language to at least give directions to the nearest bathroom.  But there's an amazing amount of written content out there that isn't in any given person's native language, and to help with this issue, Google Reader has gained an auto-translate option.

Microsoft Live Search has rolled out a new translation feature in its search results. The feature is available through Live Search, IE8, the Windows Live Toolbar, and a translation bot for Windows Live Messenger.

Google took the lid off a new service today, an extension of its Translate service called Google Translation Center that connects translators with people who need content translated into other languages. All compensation arrangements are left to the individuals involved, but Google will store results on its own servers.

TechCzar.com is a service for tech bloggers which will translate your blog posts into a variety of languages – like Chinese, German, French, Korean, Spanish and more –, with translations to be hosted at their site. The idea is really neat, I think – the service gets content, and you get potentially more readers for your posts. Furthermore, they also offer some monthly payment to the blogger if their traffic is high enough.

If you need to translate to another language and occasionally need help on a word there is a new feature in Gmail Chat that you may find helpful. You can find more details in a Googletalk blog post by Jonas Lindberg and there are more details on the blog of Rich Tehrani.

Online translation tools have their uses, but substituting for an actual translation service when sending diplomatic messages across international borders shouldn't be one of them.

Whenever I have any topics relating to optimizing for the Hispanic online population, I normally consult a friend who know a great deal more about the Hispanic search market than I do to get a better grasp of what has been done and what else needs to be done to make a site an attractive option for the Hispanic audience.