Say What? Google Reader Translates Any Feed into Your Native Tongue
If you're like most folks interested in technology, you likely have a feed reader full of hundreds of RSS feeds on your favorite topics. No doubt, they all have one thing in common: they're in a language that you're capable of reading.
But what about all of that interesting news and information that's written in languages you don't speak? Get ready to have access to even more information about your favorite topics, because now Google Reader leverages Google Translate technology to convert any feed to your preferred language.
To use the new offering, subscribe to any feed. Once subscribed, select "Translate into my language" from "Feed settings..." and the feed will be automatically translated to the best of Google's ability, based on your default language preference.
I tested the service against Cybozu Labs - a feed that comes through RSS in Japanese - and was pleasantly surprised. While a few of the characters remained, the majority of the content came through. Not only that, but the content was translated in a way that was legible and coherent.
While at first blush, this may seem to be a minor feature, it actually holds the potential to change the way people read feeds - and the feeds they choose to read. It will be incredibly interesting to see what non-English blogs start growing in popularity now that they're no longer hindered by limited linguistics.
But how will people find these blogs? That's the other thing that makes the translation feature so interesting: it appears to work on shared items, as well. Now, you can start reading and sharing information in any language with all of your Google Reader contacts - regardless of the languages they speak.
And once we start breaking down those language barriers and sharing ideas with more people, that may be a real step toward a truly World Wide Web.
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wow, this is awesome.
i'm not seeing the "translate into my language" option in my "feed settings...". hopefully soon though.
wow, this is amazing. very awesome find. thanks!
Hmm this is gonna be pretty useful to some people. But, I wonder if everything is being translated properly. We can't answer this. Lets leave to the non-English people to decide.
Too bad it translates like crap :( Just tried some feeds and the results are laughable.
@Mike: If you don't mind mentioning it, which language performed so poorly? I tried a few different languages (Japanese, French, and German). It would be interesting to hear what's NOT working.
How are you finding good feeds in other languages? It seems to me that the next logical step is for Google to provide language agnostic search results (at the control of the user of course). For example, what are the ten most popular blogs on software in the world (regardless of language)? That should be easier than having to use a translation service ten times and plugging in the translated term to a search engine.
Posted by: Brian R. Robinson
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November 10, 2008 7:12 PM
I am not sure about how well other countries languages being translated under this tool, but as far as I know, most of the time when it translated to Chinese, usually it read quite funny in the content :)
omg... the translation from Chinese to English is much better than I expected.
I tried couple long blog articles, and I have no problem reading the english version, although the grammar is still a bit wrong.
but seems like google translation engine just got better. thumbs up
It is an impressive feature. I have already subscribed to blogs in German, Japanese, French and Italian. The translation is not perfect, but at least I get a general idea about the issue being discussed.
And since my own blog is in Spanish, maybe some of you want to try if it works for you :D
One thing that is annoying is that I can't choose what to translate to. I would prefer to have it translating to english rather than swedish since the * > english translation is a lot better in most cases.
Nevertheless, really useful feature.
Now if only they'd implement a commenting feature directly into google reader, preferably with a google translate feature for feeds in other languages...
Sounds useful for individual words. But for phrases or sayings it probably won't work. Full sentences or sayings translate differently in the local language than a direct translation. It usually is very off. That is something they will have to work on.
Craig
https://www.budgetpulse.com//
That is very cool
Great Work by the google reader team. They continue to innovate.
I do not think that there should be a single company that has a dominate position with something as important as an rss reader. Because of this our company adelph.us decided to build A top of the line Read/Write/Re Publish feed reader that we will be releasing into open source.