Did you know that 65% of web users speak a language other than English? Haven’t you wished that your blog or website is also available in many other languages? What if most of your visitors are French or Japanese? Not all users understand English. Even if you do not understand French or any other foreign language, there are options where you can easily add a translation plug-in to your website. Just add a few codes and relax while these applications take the pain in translating the website for you.
There are two most popular language translators that we will analyze.
1. Alta Vista Babel Fish
Babel Fish, now with Yahoo! is one of the oldest online translators available. It can translate your website in 12 different languages. Adding Babel Fish translation is very easy and takes few codes to be placed on your website.
Place the following codes in your sidebar file or anywhere you wish and you get instant translation option on your website:
<script type=”text/javascript” charset=”UTF-8″ language=”JavaScript1.2″ src=”http://uk.babelfish.yahoo.com/free_trans_service/babelfish2.js?from_lang=en®ion=us”></script>
The code differs based on your default website language.
Please access http://babelfish.yahoo.com/free_trans_service to first choose your default language and then copy paste the code on your website.
2. Google Translate – Beta
Google translate is a gadget similar to Yahoo Babel Fish which can translate upto 42 languages. The code differs based on your default website language.
Please access http://translate.google.com/translate_tools?hl=en to first choose your default language and then copy paste the code on your website. This translator supports: English, Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
There are other translators like WordLingo. However, these are not highly recommended as they are not effective on certain blogs like WordPress and they tend to only partially translate a webpage.