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Google Talk now features real-time translation
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 20th December 2007
Add macros for "take me to your leader" and "where are the cute alien chicks?" and Kirk'll be in heaven.
Google has been offering translation services for blocks of text (and, for that matter, entire websites) for quite some time, of course. While it's always been possible to use this service to translate your instant messages, it's hardly been practical: type response, translate, copy, paste into Google Talk, send, wait for reply, copy, paste into Google Translate, translate. The new 'bots' introduced by Google use a protocol called XMPP which is open to all, so if you fancy making your own Elven-to-Klingon translator now's your chance.
The usage of the bots is certainly simple. Each bot takes the form of [language]2[language]@bot.talk.google.com; just replace the two languages with the standard two letter abbreviations for each language. To translate from German to English, for example, add de2en@bot.talk.google.com to your conversation. It would probably also help to add en2de@bot.talk.google.com as well, if you want to have a hope of understanding the reply.
The translation technology is still less than perfect. To give you an example, the simple sentence “Google has launched a new translation service that works, and lets me be understood in multiple languages” translated to Russian via the service gives “Google выпустил новую службы перевода, что работает и позволяет мне быть на нескольких языках”, which translates back to English as “Google launched a new translation service that works and allows me to be in several languages.”
Understandable, yes. An exact translation of the intent of the original, no. Useful for casual chatting, certainly. Reliable enough to conduct an urgent business deal with your broker in Japan over Google Talk? I think you'd better not sack your official translator just yet.
The late, lamented Douglas Adams once offered the following titbit in his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series: “Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.” A prescient warning, perhaps?
Does the new technology make you want to do your bit for world harmony and understanding, or are you just looking forward to asking someone in Spain if their “nevera está corriendo?” Sound off (in English, for preference) via the forums.
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Comments (9)Stats: 0.115 seconds
woohoo i used funsies alot. word of the day. thx will :)
while these translators get us closer and closer the only way that they are going to get perfect is if they hire linguists and have them work hand in hand with the programmers so the software can decipher those small meanings and get them right for each region. then again, that's just what i would do.
the way that these translators work now it looks like someone just referenced a English to Spanish/German/French/Russian/etc dictionary or whatever.
one day I got bored and decided to put some stuff I had written through a few different languages and some how "we know that what we no longer face" turned to "Soaps derive the fact that what we" when I looped back to english.
Shame all the good feature are in the online Google Talk gadget. Its cool, but I prefer the standalone program