GoogleTranslate is not bad at all
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Everybody knows GoogleTranslate, and everybody knows that it's not perfect either. Many sites use it on their frontend-website to translate content automatically to numerous languages. But often the translation is off - leading to funny phrases in foreign languages. Nobody mentions however using GoogleTranslate in their backend instead.
Automatic translations are never perfect
Face it - automatic translations are never perfect, simply because the human language is not just about words, but also about giving meaning to words between the lines. While Google does a fine job already, a text that is translated from let's say English to German, needs some reviewing before it can be published.
Simply because of this, translations that are placed on your frontend by using the GoogleTranslate widget might make your site look less professional.
Translate automatically from within your backend
But there's a different solution to this: Instead of adding translations without checking them, you might also translate things, and review the translated text later (or let it be reviewed by somebody else). This way you don't have to hire an expensive translator, but you don't have to skip translations eithers.
By adding a GoogleTranslate-button in your Joomla! backend or Magento backend, you can translate an article automatically, save the translation and then optimize the translate as you see fit. It might not only give you a better translation in the end, but also gives a better performance on your frontend (less JavaScript being required).
Our stuff
Because of the demand for such a solution, we decided to role out extensions that offer exactly this functionality: Translate your content (Joomla! articles, Magento products) from within your backend using either GoogleTranslate or BingTranslate, save this translation and let somebody else review the translation later in the process.
Thanks to these extensions, GoogleTranslate is not just a silly gadget on your site, but is adding to the productivity on your site:
- GoogleTranslate for Joomla!
- BingTranslate for Joomla!
- GoogleTranslate for Magento
- BingTranslate for Magento
Magento already ships with multilinguality, but for Joomla!, you need to use either the multilingual functionality that ships with the core Joomla! from version 1.6 upwards, or use popular multilingual extensions like JoomFish and Nooku Content.
