A service that is almost as accurate as a human

Nov 21, 2006 13:47 GMT  ·  By

Probably you already saw some "translate" buttons next to the links returned after you searched the Internet with Google. Many of us are already using the service for text translations or just for sites, but there are users that never heard about Google's translation service.

When you'll see a "Translate this page" next to a search result, it means that you "can translate the page into your search language. For example, if you do a search in your language and see a result in another language with a "Translate this page" link next to it, you can click on the link and translate that page into your language. You can return to the original version of the page by clicking on the "view original web page" link in the top frame of the translated page, or by going back to the Google results page and clicking on the large blue text link at the top of your selected result," Google says.

"Currently, Google offers the following translation pairs: English to and from Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese; and German to and from French," the company mentioned.

"The translation you're seeing was produced automatically by state-of-the-art technology. Unfortunately, even today's most sophisticated software doesn't approach the fluency of a native speaker or possess the skill of a professional translator. Automatic translation is very difficult, as the meaning of words depends on the context in which they're used. Accurate translation requires an understanding of context and of the structure and rules of a language. While many engineers and linguists are working on the problem, it may be some time before anyone can offer a quick and seamless translation experience," Google also added.