Make The Best Of Google Translate

Written by: lonemer7 • Edited by: Rebecca Scudder
Published Nov 12, 2008 • Related Guides: Google | Google Translate

Google Translate - Translate fragments of text, webpages, or give your visitors the opportunity to translate your website with Google's Free Online Automatic Translator.

Google Translate is an online automatic translator that works on the principle of comparing large amounts of bilingual and multilingual text. Currently it supports 34 languages but this number may increase in time. So far the quality of an automatic translation has not managed to reach the standards of professional human-made translations but Google constantly works on improving its tool and the results achieved so far look quite promising. Even though it does not reflect all the subtleties in a language, a text translated with Google Translate still serves its purpose by conveying the meaning of the original text in the selected language.

There are several ways in which you can use Google Translate.

To translate a fragment of text

Go to www.google.com/translate, Text and Web tab.
Choose your source and target language by clicking the little arrow on each of the language buttons and selecting a language from the drop-down list.
Type or copy/paste your text in the Original text input box and click Translate. The translation should appear on the right-hand side of the page.

To translate a webpage

Go to www.google.com/translate, Text and Web tab.
In the Translate a Page section type or copy/paste the address of the webpage you want to translate.
Choose the source and target language by clicking the little arrow on each of the language buttons and selecting the language from the drop-down list.
Click Translate. A new window will open with the translation of the page you requested in its original layout.

To search a page in another language

Go to www.google.com/translate, Translated Search tab.
Type the text in the Search box in your own language.
Choose your language from My Language drop-down list.
Go to where it says Search Pages Written In and select the language you want your search results to be in.
Click the Translate and Search button. The search results will appear on the same page, on two columns: on the left-hand side the translation into your language and on the right-hand side the original text as it was found in the language you requested.

To look up the multiple meanings of a word

Go to www.google.com/translate, Dictionary tab.
Choose a dictionary from the drop-down list, type in a word or phrase and click Search Dictionary.
To go back to the home page of Google Translate use the Back button on your browser.

To let your visitors translate your webpage instantly

Go to www.google.com/translate, Tools tab.
Select the language of your webpage.
Copy and paste the HTML code in between your <body> and </body> tags, where you want the Google Translate gadget to appear.

To translate a webpage directly from your browser's toolbar

Go to www.google.com/translate, Tools tab, the section called Get 1-click translations from your browser's toolbar.
Drag and drop any language button to your toolbar.

To get the instant translation of an English word directly on a webpage

Go to www.google.com/translate, Tools tab, the section called Translate words instantly from English with no clicks at all.
Download Google toolbar.
On your Google toolbar click Settings and activate Translate Menu by ticking the box next to it.
Click Translator Settings to choose the target language.
Click the translator icon on your Google toolbar to enable or disable the word translator.
To see the translation of a word into the language you selected, just hover the mouse cursor over it.

Faheemah Jun 13, 2011 4:55 PM

Google's Translation to Open in Same Window as Original Site

Dear Bright Hub,

On my website's Google translator I've got the Spanish and Portuguese flags as links to the translated site.

I have asked my website designer to also install the British flag so visitors either click the British flag or "back" button to return to the original English site. I do not want the translated site to open in a new window.

Please explain how to accomplish this so I can pass on your instructions to the designer.

Many thanks for your help.