Google translate tools
OK … I know a lot of people decry various online translation resources, but I am not talking about reading a book, I am talking about translating a title page here. The fact is they have gotten more sophisticated and you can now get a lot more than just a word for word translation.
On the Google homepage ( http://www.google.com … does anyone not know this already?) to the right of the input box there is a list of three choices, the bottom one is “Language tools”. I use the “Translate text” box quite often. One hint, type out what you want in Word first if there are any diacritics. Do not try to copy and paste from OCLC because the ALA characters for diacritics will not be recognized.
Copy and paste your text into the translate box, select the language it is in and hit the button. What could be easier??
Well, what if you don’t know the language? I had an item I was fairly certain was in Dutch, but I could not be sure. It turned out I was right, but what if I wasn’t? Google translate has a new feature that can help. Once you have tried to translate a text, you can change the language to “Detect language” (the top choice) and it will figure it out for you!
Give it a try!!
Copy and paste: Statistiek van het personeel in Overheidsdienst naar de toestand in the box and tell it to translate from Spanish to English.
You should get the same thing you had before.
Now, click on the arrow in the box that says “Spanish” and change it to “Detect language” and try again.
Not only do you get the translation, it also tells you what language it translated this from.
Once again, I am not recommending this for research or reading the latest Russian novel, but if you just want to find out what the heck the title page says, it has worked really well for me!
