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May 15, 2008 5:17 PM PDT

Google Translate speaks 10 new languages

by Stephen Shankland

Google Translate just got more useful for a Prague citizen visiting India.

The online translation function now can understand 10 more languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, and Swedish. That brings the total to 23 languages, Google said in a blog posting Thursday.

In addition, Google added a language-detection feature that can guess the source language a user is trying to translate. It's more effective with longer amounts of text, Google said.

Detect Language means you only have to click the language you want to translate text into.

Originally posted at News Blog
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank.
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by bigpics May 15, 2008 11:05 PM PDT
I've been waiting over a decade for ONE of these translators -- any of them -- to include Latin. It's very useful to philology and etymology fans -- to students of Latin -- and to anyone who comes across a Latin phrase or motto in any context. Latin also doesn't have a huge vocabulary so it would likely be not a major commitment of resources.
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by InklingBooks May 16, 2008 12:09 AM PDT
I agree. When are these translation site going to include Latin? A century ago almost any educated person understood and used Latin in their speech and writing. When we read them, it's hard to understand what they're saying without some sort of tool.

Google give us Latin. Babel Fish give us Latin. Someone give us Latin. Anyone give us Latin.
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