Another Translation Widget Released

Microsoft announced yesterday at MIX09 their own translation widget, Microsoft Translator.  Both a widget you can put on pages and an API to integrate translation into applications (and more) are available.  Currently both are being tested on an invite only basis, but you may be able to register for an invite code to be sent to your email.  There are also some forums available for developers.  There’s not a lot of buzz in the forums at the moment, but maybe that’s because even their translation service comes with this caveat:

“Please note that automatic translation enables you to understand the gist of foreign language text, but is no substitute for a professional human translator if fluency is required.”

Based on a translation from Chinese to English, I think in some cases that ‘gist’ might be relative.  The Chinese text on the llama (maybe they’re alpacas) photo to the right is 马勒&歌碧_本土原创毛绒玩偶. According to Microsoft’s Live translator, this equates to “māler & byuck indigenizational priamary songintellectual _sites.ForestName, _tcp.ForestName, soft toys.” I think a better translation of that would be ‘Mahler and Gobi plush dolls’ (soft toys if you prefer).

I’ve written before on why widgets don’t solve your website translation needs.