Search in a Foreign Language

I happened upon this hidden gem in Google Translate. I know Google just announced their "Universal Search" concept but I hadn't actually noticed any new features to back up the claim. That is, until I ran into the aforementioned page.

As you can see from the screenshots, you can specify your native language and the language you want the results selected from.

Based on my search for "Silverlight" in Japanese, I'm not sure how relevant the results are yet. Here are a couple quick questions I've got running around:

1. What's the time line to integrate this feature into Google search classic (or iGoogle)?
2. What's the purpose behind serving both the translated and original version on the search page? If I'm using a translator, I obviously don't know the language very well. In what situation would I need the original next to the translated version? Besides learning the language.
3. What type of search requires specifying a foreign language? Perhaps as someone English speaking, I am not Google's target audience for "Universal Search".
   

Like all things Google, Universal Search is still in Beta.

Cheers,
Todd

Add A Translation Tool To Your Blog

I added Google Analytics to my blog a couple weeks ago because I was interested to see where my web traffic was coming from. I was surprised at the percentage of views coming from non-English speaking countries (~33%). I started wondering if all these individuals were adept at reading English or were just muddling through my posts to get to the code (most of the views were for my code-related entries). After a minute or two of contemplation, it dawned on me I could make their life a whole lot easier by providing a translation tool. So, I jumped onto Google Translation and took a quick look at how they structure their URL variables. Here's the HTML/Javascript widget I came up with:

<form action="http://www.google.com/translate" onsubmit="this.u.value=window.location.href" method="GET">
<input value="en" name="hl" type="hidden"/>
<input value="UTF8" name="ie" type="hidden"/>
<input value="" name="u" type="hidden"/>
Select Language: <select name="langpair">
<option value="en|fr"/>French
<option value="en|de"/>German
<option value="en|it"/>Italian
<option value="en|pt"/>Portuguese
<option value="en|es"/>Spanish
<option value="en|ar"/>Arabic BETA
<option value="en|zh-CN"/>Chinese (Simplified) BETA
<option value="en|ja"/>Japanese BETA
<option value="en|ko"/>Korean BETA
<option value="en|ru"/>Russian BETA
</select><br/>
<input value="Translate" type="submit"/>
</form>

The form posts to Google's Translation Service and seems to do a good job of converting the page to the selected language. Please be aware of two things:

1. The languages listed in Beta can mess with the page layout a little bit. Remove those from the select box option list if thats a major concern for you.


2. The WHOLE page will be translated. If some of your posts deal with code examples, they will be turned into some bizarre/humorous pseudo-code.

To use the widget, just copy and paste the above code into the proper section of your blog Template. If you are using Blogger, paste the code into a "Third Party HTML/Javascript" module.
The widget works great and provides a nice way for people to read your posts in their native tongue. Please let me know if you run into any problems. I'll be more than happy to troubleshoot issues as they arise.

Enjoy!