November 11, 2008

Translate Feeds in Google Reader

Just because you don't speak a certain language doesn't mean you shouldn't read interesting articles written in that language. After increasing the number of supported language pairs and providing an API, Google Translate is rapidly integrated in many Google services. YouTube started to translate search results and closed captions, Google Talk provides translation bots, Google lets you search content in other languages and now you can subscribe to feeds in foreign languages using Google Reader.

After subscribing to a feed in Google Reader, click on "Feed settings" and select "Translate into my language". Google detects the feed's language and it translates the content into Google Reader's interface language (you can be changed it from the settings page).


Some Google-related sites in other languages than English:
Zorgloob (French)
Google Watch Blog (German)
OJObuscador (Spanish)
Google Discovery (Portuguese)
underGoogle (Portuguese)

When Google's machine translations improves, the next step could be translating content into your language without having to select an option. In the meantime, you can expect to find Google Translate integration in Gmail, Google Docs and other Google services.

{ via Google Reader Blog }
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17 comments:

  1. Rene FragaNovember 11, 2008 at 6:20 AM

    Alex,

    Thank you very much for indicating Google Discovery to your readers.

    Best Regards!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 11, 2008 at 10:25 AM

    This is nice. But I'd rather skip those foreign feeds I can't understand, than have Google mess with my native tongue (Danish).

    Goggle translations are, in my experience, really horrible. They do work, if you need some information that is completely unavailable in languages you understand. Say what some Egyptian human rights blogger is saying.

    Other than that, if there is an alternative in a language you do understand, then skip the translation. It will mess with your linguistic instinct.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousNovember 11, 2008 at 11:07 AM

    THIS IS AMAZING!! I've been wanting this forever. I have tons of favorite sites that are just not in english

    ReplyDelete
  4. Alex ChituNovember 11, 2008 at 1:10 PM

    I noticed some problems with this feature:

    * it only works if you select a feed from the sidebar, not in the "all items" or "tag" view

    * Google Reader doesn't index the translation, so you can't find the translated posts unless you search in the original language

    * you shouldn't need to select the translation option (or it should be a checkbox when you subscribe to the feed).

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousNovember 12, 2008 at 12:39 AM

    There's a problem with auto-translate. Google Reader assumes that my preferred language is the language of the computer I am using. I am an English speaker in Switzerland, so Google Reader thinks I want everything translated to German, when I would rather have the feed translated FROM German to English. I can't find any way to correct this. It would be better if Reader looked to my preferences for my language of choice. Gmail displays everything in English, not German, but Reader displays all the navigational links in German. I hope that Reader follows Gmail's lead on this one. Or Reader should at least allow me to choose which language to translate to rather than trying to guess.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousNovember 17, 2008 at 9:49 AM

    The auto-translation service is not available in Traditional Chinese environment (English won't be auto-translated into T-Chinese).

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownDecember 6, 2008 at 4:05 PM

    I need Thai.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousMarch 9, 2009 at 1:21 AM

    translation from english to simplified chinese doesn't work either

    ReplyDelete
  9. te verdeMay 25, 2009 at 7:13 AM

    I think is geting better and better this kind of translation...just think where we were 10 years ago... think in the future..

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousMay 28, 2009 at 3:57 PM

    You can see the same feature here at my site: http://www.nukedesigners.com. find feeds, translate feeds. Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  11. billycatsJune 13, 2009 at 2:20 AM

    I roll through a lot of my blogs via Google Reader at work. Most of what I look at is related to my work, some of it isn't. If my network guys took an interest in me, what would they see? A lot of time in Google Reader, or every blog that Google Reader is set to tap? If they can see everything, is there a way to prevent that? Short of setting up a proxy server (though not ruled out as an option)... Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Caleb MaclennanAugust 12, 2009 at 7:47 AM

    This is a great feature, but I have a small complaint / suggestion similar to Job's above.

    The target language is assumed to be the one I use the google interface in. This is usually NOT the language I would like feeds translated into. I use the Turkish interface for google, but google's Turkish translation engine is VERY rough. If I need feeds translated, I would prefer them translated into English which is a much better quality. I cannot do this without switching to the English user interface.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Kai CarverFebruary 20, 2010 at 1:00 AM

    This is a very very nice feature.

    One feature request:

    I use this for Chinese to English, which is useful but still rough in many places. Often I'd like to do a quick check of the original without losing context.

    I'd like to be able to see hover popups with the original text. These exist in Google Translate, and they are handy.

    ReplyDelete
  14. AnonymousApril 7, 2010 at 10:38 AM

    While I really like the Translate into my Language feature, my problem is that once I take the feeds that were all translated to English in the reader and make them a bundle, all of the foreign language blogs revert to their original language. Does anyone know of a fix for this?

    ReplyDelete
  15. shhhhJuly 9, 2010 at 9:30 AM

    Great feature, but the comments also need to be translated, especially with the buzz element, if one wants to partake in a discussion about a post...

    ReplyDelete
  16. AnonymousJune 16, 2011 at 12:36 AM

    Please add Persian language as well.
    In Google Reader users are needed so that this feature

    ReplyDelete
  17. Maulik M.September 23, 2011 at 11:43 PM

    Please add Gujarati or Hindi language.
    My community will really appreciate.

    ReplyDelete

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