While the technology behind these machine translators is constantly improving, it's still not as good as what a professional human translator or dual-language speaker can accomplish. This means that a lot of sentences and syntax get garbled even single-word translations are sometimes off a little, due to a lack of context sensitivity.Īs I said, all automatic translation servicessometimes called machine translationsuffer from the same problems.

It's basically a word-by-word translation that doesn't always 'get' the structure and rules of a language. Google's automatic translation function, like all translation tools you find on the Web, is accomplished via the use of technology. You activate WordTranslator by clicking the down arrow next to the Translate button and checking the Enable WordTranslator option. You choose the language by selecting Settings, Options, clicking the Translator Settings button, and then choosing a language from the pull-down list. To use the WordTranslator feature, you have to first choose the destination language, and then activate the tool. Translating words on the fly with Google Toolbar's WordTranslator. As you can see in Figure 13.18, the chosen-language definitions for the selected word appear in a tooltip-like pop-up.įigure 13.18.

The WordTranslator function, when enabled, allows you to translate any English word into your chosen foreign language, just by hovering your cursor over the word on a web page.

Here's another translation tool you can apply from the Google Toolbar. Translating Words from the Google Toolbar Learn more about the Google Toolbar in Chapter 31, 'Using the Google Toolbar.'

Google translate japan to english