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Your Blog - In Every Language

By
Real Estate Agent with RE/MAX Destiny Real Estate Cambridge, MA

I was looking through the visits to my blog this morning and discovered something really cool.  Sitemeter shows you the visits to your website and you can click to see the page that brought them there - the google, yahoo, bing search or whatever.

Well I clicked on one of the links to see the referring site and what did I see but my blog - in Spanish!!  

It's yet another nifty Google application - Google Translate.  Someone in Spain was reading my blog in Spanish via Google Translate. How cool is that?

Enter a url - or text - and with a click of the button Google translates into the language of your choice - over 40 of them - from Albanian to Vietnamese.  It's amazing! And fun - I couldn't help but play around and check out how my site looked in half a dozen languages.  If you hover your mouse over the translated text it will show the original English. Very cool.

And of course it's amazingly useful too.  When I think of all the times over the years when I needed to translate a document - score yet another one for the web and for Google.

And if you're working with international clients or clients whose first language isn't English this is a great option to make your blog more useful for them. 

I've still got to think about how I might use this on my home page - perhaps a link to the application encouraging people to translate the page into their language.  Are any of you making use of this?

Just for fun - here's my blog in Italian - at least mostly in Italian - it misses a few words here and there:

 Centers and Square blog in Italian

Frank Rubi
Frank Rubi Real Estate, LLC - Metairie, LA
FrankRubiRealEstate.com

Elizabeth, very interesting post tonight. As I am sitting on the beach on Holiday, I am thinking of better ways etc... In New Orleans there is a large surge in Spanish speaking people. I may start post blog in Spanish using Google translator. It might bring some business, I do speak and understand Spanish but it could use some work.

Jun 27, 2009 04:22 PM
Elizabeth Bolton
RE/MAX Destiny Real Estate Cambridge, MA - Cambridge, MA
Cambridge MA Realtor

Hi Frank ~ Great idea! It's remarkably quick and easy - I have no way to test its accuracy but quick and easy it is.

Liz

Jun 27, 2009 04:32 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Elizabeth,

I am not sure about the wuality of translation. I tried to check how  it is done into Russian, and results were quite disappointing. But the technology is changing so fast, I think whatever bugs are  there, they will soo be fixed.

Jun 27, 2009 04:45 PM
Elizabeth Bolton
RE/MAX Destiny Real Estate Cambridge, MA - Cambridge, MA
Cambridge MA Realtor

Hi Jon ~ I wondered about accuracy but sad to say don't know another language so can't test it.

Liz

Jun 27, 2009 04:54 PM
Ralph Gorgoglione
Metro Life Homes - Palm Springs, CA
California and Hawaii Real Estate (310) 497-9407

Way cool.

I HAVE to check this out and see if I can apply it to my blog.

Thanks fo sharing.

Jun 27, 2009 05:41 PM
Tony & Darcy Cannon
Aubrey and Associates Realty - Layton, UT
The C Team

Elizabeth, this is great information!  Thank you for sharing it, I need to add it to our blog, although I am fluent in Spanish, I don't like to take the time to rewrite everything.  I also worry about dialects and slang, but now I will check this out and put it to use!

Jun 27, 2009 06:02 PM
Andrea Swiedler
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England Properties - New Milford, CT
Realtor, Southern Litchfield County CT

Hi Liz, I have used that in reverse, was pretty good, the translations were not always making sense, but I got the idea. And like Jon said, I have translated a page in English to Russian, my husband told me it was not necessarily correct. But I told him Russian looked all Greek to me anyway. (I can recognice the word "Moscow" in Russian, that's about it for me) :D

Great tool though!

Jun 27, 2009 11:30 PM
Wendy Welborne-Kimery
Keller Williams-Lake Norman Mooresville,NC - Mooresville, NC

Liz, Thank you for the tip.  I had never heard of this.

Jun 27, 2009 11:54 PM
Elizabeth Bolton
RE/MAX Destiny Real Estate Cambridge, MA - Cambridge, MA
Cambridge MA Realtor

Hi Ralph ~ I was psyched when I saw it - it definitely has all sorts of possibilities.

Hi Tony and Darcy ~ It's an amazing tool - and I figure you can polish it up if need be if you're fluent in the language.

Hi Andrea ~ From people's comments it seems like it must be like those funny translations on signs, etc that you sometimes come across.  I'm psyched - as an English-only dummy I know I'll use this - and it just tickles me to see my posts in other languages.

Hi Wendy ~ I hadn't come across it either so it was a great surprise.

Liz

Jun 28, 2009 01:55 AM
Jeff Dowler, CRS
eXp Realty of California, Inc. - Carlsbad, CA
The Southern California Relocation Dude

Liz - what a great tool. We can have a post translated and send it to clients whose primary language is not English, too. In terms of accuracy,we could just ask others who know the language.

Jeff

Jun 28, 2009 05:02 AM
Gabrielle Kamahele Rhind
KGC Properties LLC, Tucson Property Management & Real Estate - Tucson, AZ
Broker/Owner

GOOD MORNING LIZ!  I am going to make use of this!  Thank you for sharing it!  I have seen my Facebook page in Japanese and that is kinda fun! Anyway, I love this! -- Gab

Jun 28, 2009 11:37 PM
Jim Frimmer
HomeSmart Realty West - San Diego, CA
Realtor & CDPE, Mission Valley specialist

It looks like it only misses cities, towns, and MLS, which I don't think is surprising.

Jun 29, 2009 06:07 AM
Karl Peidl
Moorestown, NJ
Accredited Loan Consultant

Felicidades. Eso es impresionante.

That's Spanish for "Congratulations.  That's awesome."

I just used Google Translate to figure that out.

Jun 29, 2009 06:10 AM
Elizabeth Bolton
RE/MAX Destiny Real Estate Cambridge, MA - Cambridge, MA
Cambridge MA Realtor

Isn't it a blast Garbrielle? I love it too.

Hi Jim ~ A couple of times when I tried it it would miss other words that would be translated in some of the other languages.  No complaints though since it translates with the click of a button.

Good one Karl!! That's a riot - and a good idea!!

Liz

Jun 29, 2009 03:10 PM
The Somers Team
The Somers Team at KW Philadelphia - Philadelphia, PA
Delivering Real Estate Happiness

Liz - Wow !  That is super cool !  Google rocks and Active Rain rocks too !  What a great tool and a nice suprise in terms of evaulating your blog's activity.

Jun 30, 2009 12:17 AM