Tech Tips for Writers is an occasional post on overcoming Tech Dread. I’ll cover issues that friends, both real-time and virtual, have shared. Feel free to post a comment about a question you have. I’ll cover it in a future tip.
Over the years, I get more and more views on this blog from nations that don’t speak English. I always drop in to visit those who visit me, and no surprise, their blogs are in their native language (as mine is in mine). Sometimes they have the Translate feature, but not always. That stymied me for a long time. I had to copy the text into another webpage to translate it.
Then I discovered this.
To translate a webpage:
Right click on the page
Select ‘Translate’
A box pops up and you select your language.
Here’s a before and after:
Ever since I found that, I’ve gotten even more international visitors. I’m thrilled with that. It works with comments, too. (Note: This is in Chrome. It may not work the same in Firefox or Edge).
What’s your favorite way to translate to another language?
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular prehistoric fiction saga, Man vs. Nature which explores seminal events in man’s evolution one trilogy at a time. She is also the author of the Rowe-Delamagente thrillers and Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. Her non-fiction includes over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, reviews as an Amazon Vine Voice, and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. Look for her next prehistoric fiction, Natural Selection, Winter 2022.
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Pease do take into account that that will always be “just” a machine generated translation. It is usefull on a personal basis to translate a website “on the fly”. But if you want to have your website translated properly to attract customers, you’d better bet on a good human translation service!
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Thank you for pointing that out, Juan. You are absolutely right. The Google machine misses the nuances. I experienced that first hand when I read Russian classics (like Solzhenitsyn) in Russia and then translated to English. They lost some/a lot of their power.
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Hi Jacqui – very late … but fascinating how much you trawl about the net! Also interesting to see the comments generated … cheers Hilary
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I love this quick translation. It even works for comments (like Citu’s on another post).
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A great tip, Jacqui!
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I use it many times a day. Thanks for visiting, Toni.
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This is a terrific tip, Jacqui. I want to know the people who visit my blog, but until now I’ve been stumped on how to do that with some.
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Me, too–for a long time. I forget how I found this method but it made me beyond happy!
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Oooh, that’s a good one! Thanks for the info, Jacqui, I have been getting more international followers too.
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I bet it hurt every time you had to ignore them! That’s how I felt–they took the time to visit and I couldn’t figure out what they were saying. This is wonderful.
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Excellent share Jacqui. And happy to say, I already have been a fan of this feature since I began learning Spanish. So handy! 🙂
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It’s become critical to be able to at least translate languages if not speak them.
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Gracias por los consejos. Te mando un beso
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I just used it to read your comment! Thanks for the kiss, Citu.
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Thanks for this! I didn’t know I could do a translation.
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This is very cool, innit?
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Very good post
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Thank you!
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Reblogged this on Corabia cu gânduri a Marinei Costa – Marina Costa s shipload of thoughts and commented:
I think it is very useful for my readers who cannot read Romanian…
Thank you!
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Thank you for sharing this on your blog, Marina. You actually inspired it–because I couldn’t find the ‘translate’ button in your sidebar! Now, I don’t need it.
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Thank you, Jacqui! I know that I have no idea how to put a translation thing, so I shared it for others who wanted. I knew some read my posts with Google Translate. And I had seen that some blogs had a translation feature, others did not, but I thought they appear automatedly for those who do not have the PC language the same with the blog’s. I never used it (I can read and understand English, Spanish, French, and because of speaking Romanian, French and Spanish, I can understand even if I do not speak 60-70% of Portuguese, Italian, Catalan).
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All those languages–impressive, Marina. I’m in awe.
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They go in pack 😛 the Romances 🙂
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How smart! I’ve never noticed this trick before 🙂
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Part of me thinks it’s new because I never noticed it before, either!
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Something else I didn’t know. Thanks;) I love the tips.
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I have another really good one coming up in a few weeks!
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I use the right-click translate often. Isn’t technology awesome?!
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What other tips do you have for me, Priscilla? Hmm??? I love making my life easier.
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I have a lot of followers in the UK, sadly the translate thing doesn’t translate UK English into American English … I have mentioned this to google a few times, but they still haven’t fixed it.
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Hehee. So when they say ‘bonnet’, you see ‘hat’–I see the problem, Andrew.
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I’m still trying to figure out how my English sister-in-law got her new microwave into her “boot.”
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Hehee.
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The translate option pops up when I’m on some bloggers whose first language is not English. I never thought of translating my posts into other languages. It’s good to know about the option, jacqui!
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I added the ‘Google translate’ into my sidebar when I noticed how many visitors I have from other nations. It amazed me! Might as well make it easier for them!
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I might as well do it because I have quite a few also!
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Loved the translate option, Jacqui! Thank you so much.
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I went on a search for an easy translate button and found it right on my right-click dropdown menu.
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Too easy! 🙂
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What an enlightening post, Jacqui. I had never even thought of language translation on my website or blog.
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It is such a help. Once you start using it, you won’t quit.
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Wow. I didn’t know this one. That’s awesome. What an easy solution. Thank you!
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It is! I discovered it by accident and got all excited! Had to share!
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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve closed a post because I can’t find a way to read it. Never again.
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It works with comments, too.
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I saw that! That’s great.
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I have the same question as jgarrison. Thanks for your tech tips, Jacqui!
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I hope my answer helped. Let me know if I missed anything.
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Thanks. Yes, your answer did help. 🙂
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I really do appreciate those pages that have “Translate” buttons. I wonder, to be kind, if those of us who write in English should also have such a button? Is it easy to put such a button on your page?
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Yes! At least for WP.com users it is. I did ask a blogger who writes in Spanish to add it to her sidebar, but she couldn’t figure out how. That might have been the seed for discovering this approach. I hated having her visit me and I couldn’t return the favor.
Anyone know about Blogger? Do they have that add-on feature?
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That’s a handy feature. Thanks for sharing.
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It is! And is now my default. Sometimes, the page auto-translates, but if it doesn’t, all I need is two clicks.
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Awesome tip, Jacqui! Thanks for sharing!
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I was pretty happy when I discovered this. The right click on a webpage used to bring up predictable actions. Now, there’s a bunch of stuff I didn’t expect!
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Thanks Jacqui for your latest tip. I use Google translate. Sometime on BBC news I go to another language just to see what it looks like and then I try to bend my mind around the words.
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I invoked that on Chrome, but for whatever reason, it doesn’t always work. That’s when I discovered this!
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Thanks Jacqui, I’ve always been a hands on kind of guy; on the job training was and is still my motto! I jump in and get wet, dirty, and crazy or whatever, but, I get going and do it! Maybe that’s why I’m a Jack of All Trades and a Master of a Few. Or maybe I’m just a guy that won’t wait for someone to ask me or allow me to get a handle on this or that so I figure it out for myself, even did that with chemistry in grade school becoming an advanced placement student in it through high school; my concept works but would probably be a bad idea in medicine; can’t be making mistakes with lives, right! What do you call a person like me; besides kooky that is? Is this all in alignment with the adage, “when the going is tough the tough get going?” I wonder.
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I use Firefox so I’ll have to se if that works. I do visit someone who posts in another language and I have to guess with my comment.
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I tested it on Firefox and Edge. Edge has it also, but not Firefox. That’s disappointing. I know there’s an add-on but it doesn’t always work. And we-all can add the ‘translate’ feature to the sidebar but people don’t always do that. Sigh.
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The ability to translater writing with the click of a mouse is one of the great advantages of our new digital world.
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I agree. Yes, we don’t get the nuances, but we do get the gist. Big step forward.
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Dear Jacqui
As we use Firefox we use google translator. Much better is https://www.deepl.com/translator. At least the translations into German are high qualiy so I think the English translations are as well.
Thanks for sharing
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Thanks for that link. I’m glad to hear it’s a better quality than the ones done automatically. I am quite certain they are doing a generic translate.
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That’s what I’ve used on occasion, Jacqui. The translation is obviously a bit stilted, but you can certainly get the gist of a post.
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I mostly want to make sure I’m open to the opinions in the post. I don’t want to ‘like’ a post about human trafficking when they threw pretty pictures in to grab my attention. So, I’m satisfied with a less-than-deep translation.
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Exactly. Otherwise it’s like not reading something you’re signing up for.
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This is great, Jacqui! Thanks for sharing.
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I don’t happily go beyond 3 steps to complete anything. I have one reader who always comments in Spanish. I would copy his comment, open a new webpage, search ‘Translate’, paste his comment in, and then go back to his comment and respond. That’s at least three steps, but I appreciated that he visited me. Now, I just right-click!
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Good suggestion for translation, Jacqui! It doesn’t work here in words that I can see. I will check it out when I’m on Chrome
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It seems to work in Chrome and Edge, but not Word. Now you have my mind wandering…
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No, it doesn’t work that way in Firefox. To translate a webpage in Firefox you use Google Translate – it will actually translate the webpage without you needing to copy and past anything!
You copy the URL and pop it into Google Translate. Then the second box, which normally shows the english translation, will show a live link. You click that and it takes you to the webpage you want to read, but after a few seconds, the webpage appears in English and you get a google translate bar across the top. Easy peasy!
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That sounds complicated! But at least there’s a way! I was going to switch (back) to Firefox because Chrome is annoying me lately. Not sure I will now!
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It’s actually very easy, and once you’ve set up the google translate for that page it remembers it so you only do it once per page you have to translate.
If you want firefox, you can get a firefox translate plugin so it does it automatically. I just don’t visit enough non-english websites to make it worthwhile.
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Thanks for letting me know that. That’s helpful.
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Hi Jacqui, I also follow a few people whose posts are not in English or are only partially in English. I also use this same translate button which pops up automatically. Some bloggers write in English and their home language which is also nice.
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I’ve seen that–write in both languages. Back in the day, I could write in Russian or French. Of course, Russian requires a different keyboard. Oh well.
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You are certainly a lot more gifted with languages than I am, Jacqui. I taught myself some basic French which I still remember and I can speak Afrikaans, but that is all. I went the mathematical route at Uni.
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Math–and music–both their own languages, don’t you think?
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Well, yes, that probably is a good point.
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