Sunday, March 14, 2010 Previous editions
Friday, August 28, 2009
IRISH speakers can finally use the internet to find and view search results on foreign language websites in their native tongue.
Yesterday, internet search engine giant Google announced the launch of a full suite of translation tools "as Gaeilge".
The service can be used to translate specific web pages or text, as well as search English web pages using Irish keywords, and have the results translated from any of 51 other languages into Irish.
The company cited an example whereby an Irish-speaking internet user is planning an African safari tour.
The Google translation tool allows users to have web results about safari tour companies in English, French or another language translated back into Irish in just a fraction of a second.
Users can also paste text or an URL for a particular web page in any of the 51 supported languages and receive a translation in Irish almost immediately via Google Translate.
Director of product management at Google, Tom Stocky, said the tool was about allowing access to information in all languages.
"At Google we believe that the internet is about enabling access to the world’s information, in all of its languages."
"Today’s launch of Google Translate in nine new languages makes it easier to access web content from all over the web, even when it is written in a language that is not your own," he said.
The company said that, while machine translation "isn’t perfect", it was a great tool for anyone looking to access and get an overview of information in languages he or she doesn’t know well. In addition, Google also provides users the ability to suggest a better translation if they encounter a translation that’s awkward or not quite right.
The company will use this feedback to help improve translation quality in updates to the system.
ltranslate.google.com
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