Would you like to read this blog in Spanish? What about German, French, Portugese, or Italian? Or stretch even further and read this blog translated into Japanese, Chinese, or Korean?
Think of the possibilities. With a click, your blog is accessible by millions of non-English speakers. You’ve opened your words up to the world.
Would you like to know how to include these instant translation links for your blog? Well, that’s what I’m here for.
These instant translation links use Google’s Language Tools to translate your blog’s text into one of eight different languages. More languages may be added in the future, but for now, we’ll work with the eight languages we have.
To add instant translation links to your blog, you simply need a link that when clicked will take the user to the Google Translation page, displaying your blog translated in the language of the user’s choice. Here is a breakdown of the link.
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=website url&langpair=language abbreviation to translate from%7Clanguage abbreviation to translate to&hl=language abbreviation to translate to&ie=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
To translate my blog into Spanish, which means I’m converting the page from English (en) to Spanish (es), this is the link.
http://translate.google.com/translate?u= http://lorelle.wordpress.com &langpair=en%7Ces&hl=es &ie=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
To translate my main website from English to Italian (it), Taking Your Camera on the Road, the link would look like this:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u= http://www.cameraontheroad.com &langpair=en%7Cit&hl=it &ie=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
NOTE: Remove the spaces in the links before using. The spaces are for display formatting.
These translations aren’t perfect, but they are getting better all the time.
So add some language translation links to your sidebar or posts and help spread the word about your blog to the world.
Technorati Tags: translate, translation, foriegn, language, localization
Site Search Tags: translate, translation, foriegn, language, localization
36 Comments
Great tip! Thanks! I never thought about using the Google Translate service is this manner.
This is awsome , Thank you !!
This was VERY helpful. Thank you for taking the time to explain the process so clearly.
Google’s translation only goes halfway down the page, then reverts to English. It gives up completely if you try English to Spanish then on to German. I was hoping for the Babelfish Effect, that when you finally get it back to English it means something entirely different.
When translating huge amounts of information, then it only translates part way. This is a limitation of Google’s service. I remember being told something like “It’s just a helpful service, not a book translator. And it’s free.” So you get what you pay for, I guess.
If you translate the front page of a blog featuring thousands of words, you will not get a complete translation. The links in the sidebar here are for the front page. It is not a plugin with a variable, but an absolute link.
The trick is to click the translate buttons appropriate for your language of choice, and then click any of the links within the article, sidebar, or related articles and the linked article will be fully translated. Even if you scroll down to where the translation stops, click the title of the article and it will be translated. As long as the Google translation header frame is at the top, then the pages viewed within will be translated.
As for jumping from language to language, remember you are dealing with a free limited service run by a machine not human. It’s meant to be an aid not a replacement for full service, paid translations. If you use the links to change translation from the sidebar, going one from one language to another after being translated, you will get an error as the link is not a language switcher but a simple instruction to just translate the front page of the site. Google already has the translator running, so when another request to activate the translator for another language comes, the page to be translated isn’t physically somewhere, as the link instructs, but temporarily generated by Google. A page not found error results and a conflict occurs. Go back to the original site, without the header frame, and then click the next language, and it will translate from there.
I must be doing something wrong. I have removed the spaces but I don’t get the the same result.
example:
http://pupvideotraining.com/news/
just comes out as text
Follow the instructions exactly as above. I checked your site and saw nothing in the sidebar or anywhere except a heading that says “Translate” in the sidebar. You can’t just paste in the link and hope it turns into something nice like Lorelle on WordPress in Spanish. You have to put them in a link with text or a graphic. I put mine in as links with a graphic icon using the WordPress Links Manager on my blogroll.
I recommend that you
right click + copy link locationto get the full link from my sidebar, and then put in your own URL from there if copy the last bit of code in the example doesn’t work for you. It’s hard publishing code that stretches beyond the monitor and web page design.If you want to add a similar feature without the hard work, then get the Translator WordPress Plugin. If you are using the full version of WordPress, it’s a sweet addition to your site.
Hello Lorelle,
Thank you for this great tools.
But I’ve noticed one thing with Google translation (I use it to translate in spanish and japanese): my images do not display. Please do you know if there’s a solution for that?
Cheers!
No clue. It’s a function of Google if they strip out images. It didn’t for me.
The biggest problem with using this function is that it only translates the front page of your site, so clicking them on other older pages will take the reader to the front page of the site and translate that information, if you are using these with WordPress.com or sites which do not allow PHP or variables in their links. I’m working on a more flexible technique I’ll post soon.
Hi Lorelle,
Finally I found a solution. Maybe it’s not the best one, but it works!
What i’ve done: it’s to upload my images with other free hosting sites like Freeshare.us, Filefactory.com, etc.
Then, when I translate my blog all the content keeps intact!
Cheers!
Okay, so that tells me something was wrong with the links to your images, not the translation process. The only difference is that the images link to an offsite location and not your blog’s location. That’s just strange. There must be something wrong with those links to the images on your blog. Very odd.
Thanks for letting me know.
Lorelle:
Thanks for all your wonderful tips. Couldn’t do half of what I do without you…Regarding the Translating tool, what do you think about the Angsuman’s Translator Plugin Pro for wordpress blogs? It produces permalinks for each language. Have you heard of it? Does it produce duplicate content that Google will penalize? Just curious which translating method to use, but I don’t want the searchh engines killing me…Thanks
Thanks for the kind words.
As for translating your blog fully and well, all translation services available currently are so-so. Good enough to make a point, not consistently good across all translations and keyword recognition. I’m using Automatic Machine Translator WordPress Plugin from Taragana on a couple of my blogs and it works “okay” but since I don’t speak or read all of the languages available, I can only judge the ones I can.
I expect translation abilities to become built into browsers within the next few years, if anyone is thinking like they should on this, rather than the responsibility of the website or blog administrator. Until then, it’s trial and error.
I should do a hunt for some good reviews of translation services and functions. I’ll put it on the list.
Great information! Where can i copy language bar or Flags ?
Flags you will have to find elsewhere, but the link images here are free for the copying. Right click, Save Image (or Target) as.
DO NOT HOTLINK TO THESE IMAGES
This could be easier with this code…
http://www.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&langpair=en%7Cde&u= [URL]
For example, http://www.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&langpair=en%7Cde&u=www.pareen.wordpress.com
Other coding remains the same but the link can be added at the end so as to avoid any confusion.
is there a link if I want to translate my material from Spanish to English
You can try Google Translate at http://translate.google.com.
Greetings, I’m looking for the google code to translate english to greek (with the greek flag)…help!
You can find a variety in Translation and Multilingual WordPress Plugins.
In view of the market development, it is becoming increasingly clear that getting your message across to millions of non-English speakers will be a very good marketing tool. So, thanks for the tip. I look forward to more articles.
Is there any translation from “Indonesian” to any other language *need ur info…thks
Hi
The tips provided are quite useful and interesting, the value additions in terms of feedback given my commentators also have good opinion
I hope this will make us understand the realistic subject better.
Sandeep
Thank you for this. It has been a great help. My feed count jumped by nearly a quarter after using this!
You had a nice and GREAT blog… HOw can I had mine be so good like yours?
Your translate tools not working… I had been searching for this tools to place on my blog too. Please advise.
@ davidleeys:
Actually, the translation links in the sidebar do work, but only for the front page of the blog. A limitation of the process. But I might consider adding a translation set of links to each post…that’s a possibility to consider in the future.
WordPress.com blogs cannot use WordPress Plugins, but I describe some options in Translation and Multilingual WordPress Plugins for full version WordPress bloggers.
@ davidleeys:
Fourteen years of hard work and knocks?
That’s a very big question for a comment response. If you read my blog you will find the answer everywhere on how to succeed blogging. Or buy my book and get it in a condensed lot.
Thanks.
Hi,
Thanks Great tip, I have recently wanted to translate my blog with a real human translation and used OneHourTranslation.com got great results and it’s really cheap
Hi Lorelle. I had problem with google. It seems google was unable to translate my website correctly, and my whole site is mirrored (left became right).
I had it XHTML and CSS checked, but no clue. Can you help?
Oh! I almost forgot! My website is http://datarecoveryproducts.com
PS Just click on the flags on the upper right hand corner and see for yourself.
@ Rufas:
I just tried a couple of clicks and it works fine for me. You have design issues with the translations because you have design issues and problems with your site no matter what language it is in.
Also, a sitemap is a hidden file on your server that helps search engines index your site. A site map is a table of contents listing of your site’s contents. I sure wish I was in charge of naming things so these stupid naming conventions wouldn’t be so silly.
I have a question, i tried to make it work, both from english and spanish. For my blog, do I click on the page layout and add the ‘Configure HTML/JavaScript’ bar and copy the translate code for spanish and just paste it there?
thanks for your help!!
@ mela:
Page Layout? I’m sorry, I can only help you with WordPress blogs. Contact your blog platform forum or guide for instructions on using Javascript on that system.
Hi Lorelle,
Just want to let you know I found the problem. You can see the solution here.
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/172977?replies=4
As for that sitemap, I had take it off and kick it aside, somewhere. It shouldn’t troubles anymore you unless you looking for it.
After looking through the various translation plugins, I decided to use a variation of this “poor man’s technique” for my site. Based on my stats, it looks that my visitors have been using them.
I copied and pasted, changed the site url to my own, and deleted the spaces, but I still just got code. ouf. help?
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