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i18n and L10n: 8 - Translation Services

Languages are not universal. Historically geography was the limiting factor. This is no longer the case in an age for cheap flights, motorway networks and railways between nations. For example since 1995 it has been possible with the aid of the Euro Tunnel to have breakfast in London followed by lunch in Paris after disembarking the Eurostar train.

With increased travel and cooperation and expansion of the European Union there is a problem with language section and translation. Which version of a document or website is the appropriate version for there user. Using English as the default language is an extremely western centric concept which holds little weight in the present global climate.

Science fiction is full or situations to aid the story telling via the user of Universal Translators. The technology works using the principle of Speech Recognition for Machine Translation and relaying the results graphically or verbally. I am not aware of universal translator services; however there are machine translation services available of the internet. These services can help you translate blocks of text, documents or web pages.

Yahoo! Babel Fish

Babel fish is a free to use translation services provided by Yahoo!. The Babel Fish Translation tool uses machine translation technology to translate sentences in one language into another language. Babel Fish can translate either text or full web pages from the internet. The cleverly named services comes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The Babel Fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and is a universal translator which simultaneously translates from one spoken language to another. When inserted into the ear, its nutrition processes convert sound waves into brain waves, neatly crossing the language divide between any species you should happen to meet whilst travelling in space.

Quote 1: Babel Fish, Wikipedia.

As you would expect from a translation service there are the facilities to translate blocks of text or translate an entire web page. There is a limit of 150 words for a block of text. Babel Fish translator utilises the language translation software provided by Systran.

Widget

Yahoo! provide a widget which can be add to websites using a simple JavaScript snippet. The widget allows users to select the preferred languages to read the content published on your web pages. Find the widget at:

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/free_trans_service

Google Translate

The Translation service offered by Google is very compelling. I use the service frequently as digital safety net when writing emails in Spanish. Like all Google services there is a very minimal approach to design allowing developers and users to focus on the applications functionality. The service offers users a choice between 51 languages.

Widget

Like Yahoo!, Google provides a widget which can be added to your websites using JavaScript. The widget allows users to select the preferred languages to read the content published on your web pages. Find the widget at:

http://translate.google.com/

Google Translator Toolkit

The compelling feature of the Google Translate ecosystem is the Translator Toolkit. This is a Google Docs like application which allows users to translate documents and other text as well as craft be documents in other languages. The service offers an affordable solutions to translate web pages and other documents into secondary or tertiary languages without the need to out source work to expensive agencies. Find the service at:

http://translate.google.com/toolkit/

Links

1. http://babelfish.yahoo.com/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Races_and_species_in_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy
3. http://www.systran.co.uk/
4. http://translate.google.com/
5. http://translate.google.com/toolkit/
6. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/google-translate-adds-10-new-languages.html

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