Google just added machine-translation of Persian (Farsi):
This means you can now translate any text from Persian into English and from English into Persian — whether it’s a news story, a website, a blog, an email, a tweet or a Facebook message. The service is available free at http://translate.google.com.
Is the translation going to be perfect? No. But I saw multiple people around the web asking for this, so I’m glad that Google is offering this translation tool so quickly.
Here’s one final tip: Google provides a set of translation bookmarklets for many languages. The “English” bookmarklet (drag this bookmarklet up to your bookmarks bar) will auto-detect any language (including Persian) and translate it into English. If you select some text first, the bookmarklet will translate just that text. If you click the button with no text selected, the whole page will be translated.
So for some Persian (Farsi) text like this:
You can select just the text you care about and click the “English” bookmarklet and you’ll see something like this:
This can be pretty helpful, so I’m glad that the Google translation team added this feature. Likewise, if you want to translate from other languages into Persian, here’s a bookmarklet that should work.
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
This is what i like about Google, they are lightning fast in responding to user demands…i remember the youtube “audio preview” feature as well…This translation move will definitely help the world to get a better scoop in the current political crisis of Iran. Kudos.
مت خیلی باحال!
I recommend Google translate on my sites (I have some language sites). Few things in life are ‘perfect’, but ‘good’ works while striving for the perfect in life, and so is the case with translation tools.
Some of the translations are funny, but understandable. Like “Lord of the rings” was translated as “Gentleman of the rings”.
However, even if Google translate is not perfect they are one of the most useful tools Google has. People find my site using this tool, but also I find others’ sites using this tool.
As far as Persian goes, it is interesting to note that Persian, despite its intimidating script, is actually a Indo-European language, that means in some distant way it is related to English.
Hello, I am so happy to see this! This is a big change and now we (Persians) can share more knowledge with you. That was so sweet that you translated “thousand and on night”!
XLHit just added Farsi support (via Google Translate) for auto-translating FriendFeed searches (large number of Farsi speakers). Example search: “iran election” in English to Farsi and back.
Wow that’s pretty cool!
Now wouldn’t it be nice if you could do a Google search in English that would automatically translate the search text into the selected languages like ‘Persian’ and return translated results. This way you could search in English, find results automatically translated into English from foreign language websites……. That would be Real Cool!
For now it’s a case of two windows and Copy/Paste
Like in the good book ‘Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ Anything is possible…..Whatever we can think of today will be possible in the future, if someone isn’t doing it somewhere else on our planet or in another solar system…already….
Thanks Google!
Wow this is very good bookmarklet by using this we can get translated text by just in a click ..
Now no need to open translator first and translate the text by copy paste..
Thanx for it..
I m a great fan of your blog, you know why, because of such nice nice..things..
I’ve tried to use Google Translate from Swedish to Norwegian (those languages are pretty similar). Sorry, but it’s terrible.
I do understand that Sweden and Norway aren’t Googles biggest markets, but Swedish to Norwegian (and I guess vica versa) shouldn’t been published.
English and German to Norwegian works pretty sweet, though.
Not sure if that comment went through, sorry if this comes out twice.
شغاره شغاره شغاره شغاره شغاره شغاره شغاره شغاره شغاره شغاره شغاره شغاره قارچ قارچ
Hi Matt!
I know nothing about computers…..but I really like reading your webposts and your blog. You present to the camera VERY well and very naturally. You represent yourself and google very well! I didn’t have such a great view of google lately but you have changed that for me.
So thankyou!
In my next comment I will try and be technical!
A very useful feature for us. We receive a lot of travel inquires in Persian. There is no one at our company who speaks Persian and so all those potential clients go elsewhere since their emails get unanswered. Now we can start serving travelers from Iran.
Interesting timing… Now for “fun” we can pop in some of Ahmadinejad’s famous lines.
Thank you Matt. Thank you Google.
Hello Matt,
I recommend the google translation on my sites and blogs but sometimes google translation doesn’t work It has lot many mistakes on that but the best among the rest so many videos and discussion you will find on the net where you can see the google translation series of mistakes one of you can see at http://groups.google.com/group/google-translate-general/browse_thread/thread/5eabf1e6b7b94ff4/d4ea98f7123cefce
There are lot many hope you can understand that I just wanted to point you towards the work which is yet to needed to improve the google translation.
Dear Manegment of Googel
HI
Thanks for add prsian translet ofcorse this even it will be very usfull
BR
What’s up with the spam filters intituted on the 19th, years worth of white hat work on solid sites suddenlty cast down to page 5. I fully understand now why blackhatters just don’t give a crap and do what they do.
Wish Google stronger and stronger!
This reminds me. You can get some hilarious results with machine translation, especially if you go back and forward between languages a few times. Check out http://tashian.com/multibabel/ for an example of what I mean.
I guess the moral is that we’ll never have perfect machine translation without genuine AI, but this sort of thing is great for when you just need the gist. And I’m glad they finally have Farsi; I have an Iranian friend who told me that he has been waiting for it a long time.
Hello Matt,
When will Google add “Urdu” Language in the translator?
Regards
Looks like some of the farsi-english, or what ever language, translation companies, are about to loose their importance in this field, as this translation service is very rare and quite expensive..
Google breaks the limits again!
Nevalex: not until Google can master localization. The smart translators also become interpreters and cover their bases.
When’s Assyrian coming, Matt? There’s a surprisingly large semi-hidden Assyrian global community…especially in Chicago, Toronto, Las Vegas, and large parts of California.
جاى هيچ اميدوارى نيست ،هيچ اميدى نيست
What would you think Googles ILR Score would be?
Nice Info Matt
Very nice tool at this time in history to be able to translate things you seen in videos the news and webcams in reel time without relying on newpaper or reporter translation I thought these guys where shouting swear words or obscenities but turned out to be
‘This is Iran. We are all together.” “We don’t want war,” “We just want freedoms.”
Matt i am from iran :d can you look at my site on http://www.locopoc.com and tell me is the page url good for search engine optimazation?