google language tools

I will not make a joke about something being lost in translation, I promise.

Google's relatively new Language Tools can search foreign language web pages and translate text and web pages in a whole host of languages, including text that does not translate electronically very easily (such as Arabic, Japanese, and simplified and traditional Chinese).

I used the software to translate simplified Chinese text today, and it works surprisingly well. Unlike Apple's useless Sherlock, which supposedly also translates Chinese, Google's translation was actually comprehensible and reasonably accurate, and with a bit of finessing, one could easily use the software as a foundation for more accurate translations.

Here it is (clothed in Baby Blue for Firefox 2.0, in case anyone is wondering). Click on the image and you can see it full-sized.