Automatic email translation

Posted on May 12th, 2012by Michelle
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Do you use Gmail for your email? They’ve just updated their service to include automatic message translation, meaning that any emails you receive in a different language will automatically be translated to the language of your choice!

Google have included a number of different options for this – you can choose to have messages auto-translated, pick which messages are translated, and also turn off the translation option for certain languages. So if you want to test your Spanish language skills, turn off the translation option for the language and see how far you can get through the email!

More information on these options is available over at the Gmail blog.

Google Goggles helps you translate

Posted on May 20th, 2010by Michelle
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goggles_translationA cool new application from Google will soon be able to help you translate from written words.

Google Goggles users can point their phone at a word or phrase they wish to have translated, and then fine-tune their onscreen selection to a smaller area. Using the phone’s camera, the application will recognise the language and give you an option to translate it. This makes the application perfect for globetrotters – whether you need a menu or sign translated, you can do so without the hassle of searching through a guide book or dictionary.

The application can only translate languages based on the Latin alphabet such as English, French, Italian, German and Spanish at the moment, but once the text is captured it can be quickly translated to other languages. Google are apparently confident that other languages, including Chinese, Arabic and Hindi will soon be added to the app.

Whilst the app is free, you’ll need a mobile device running Android 1.6 or higher. I’ll definitely be giving this a try on my trip to Italy next month!

Language exchanges – for kids

Posted on February 9th, 2010by Michelle
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Language exchangesLanguage exchanges can be a good way of improving your abilities, especially your confidence in speaking and listening. With new technology and the power of the internet, you can talk to people from other countries online, thus ‘exchanging’ languages, hopefully to the improvement of both parties.

Living in the country of the language you are learning is a step further than this. Traditionally, language exchanges were only a few weeks long on either side. Now however, it seems the trend is for “extreme” language exchanges, with children spending up to six months with their host family.

According to The Independent, children aged 9 to 14 are taking part in these exchanges, living in their host country with a local family and attending the local school for up to six months. With almost no language ability before travelling, the children become fluent by the end of their stay.

It’s often been noted that children pick up new languages faster than adults, so for those of us who are slightly older than 14, I’d probably recommend taking a couple of classes in your home country to see if you like the language before you commit to something this intense!

The language exchange discussed in the article was arranged by En Famille International, who are always looking for English-speaking families. This may also be a way to get involved in language exchange, if you’re interested and have children!

A new language learning tool?

Posted on November 30th, 2009by Michelle
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A student in New Zealand may have come up with a way to make learning a language easier.

Michael Walmsley, a PhD student, is working on a project to allow learners to read texts in a foreign language interspersed with words in their native language. He’s been awarded almost NZ$100,000 to help fund his research into the idea.

The software engineering student will spend the next three years researching ways to tap into existing online resources, such as Wikipedia and the Wiktionary, to create suitable reading texts for language learners.

Both online resources come in around 170 languages.

Mr Walmsley hopes to develop software to use them to automatically create suitable texts.

At this stage he is focusing on Japanese and Spanish with the hope to one day bring in te reo.

“The goal is to make learning a language fit into people’s busy schedules,” he said. (Source: Stuff.co.nz)

The idea is an interesting one, especially as people are increasingly busy with less time to spend on learning a language. It would also take away some of the frustration learners feel when constantly reaching for a dictionary whilst reading a text. My concern is that it would create gaps in knowledge, however, and perhaps even create more hybrid languages such as Spanglish – people could end up merely speaking a mix of their native language and target language rather than becoming fluent.

It’s definitely worth watching out for the results of the project though.