Translation Bots For Google Talk Chat Client

Google are always up to something, and we could dedicate a whole blog to them if we simply had the time on our hands! In what seems to be their never ending quest to take over the Information Technology World they have announced yet another FREE application, language translations for the Google Talk chat client.

Using the same technology as, the translation application is delivered as a series of chat bots. These tools can quickly translate a phrase or paragraph for you, and they can also be added to group chats to act as real-time translators.Google lists out about 30 total language bots with which are all logically named according to their translation duty, such as en2ko@bot.talk.google.com, signifying English to Korean translation. English is the dominant language across the translations; however there are some non-English bots available such as fr2de.

Users must configure which bot they should add, for example: If a Chinese and English user wishes to talk, the Chinese user would load the en2ch bot and the English user would load the ch2en bot. Future versions may include automated bot selections based on the users default language.

Once the correct bots are added, they will do their job both in Gmail and other Google Talk implementations like the iGoogle start page, but group chats don’t appear to work in third-party clients such as Apple’s iChat.

The program is by no means perfect; anyone who has had experience with Google’s translation dictionaries will know that translating with automation doesn’t always work.

All things considered, Google Talk’s automated translation abilities are certainly a welcome communication innovation. Users will simply need to remain patient and understanding when mistranslations inevitably happen. Google’s language dictionaries will undoubtedly improve over the coming months and years, bringing even more users together through the simple power of chat.