Bridging the Language Barrier in Search: Google Language Tools

Google might have started as a small (but full of potential) American company, but the company has many times stated that its goal is to become a global company. It should go without saying that to become global, it must also prepare its products and services to be usable by a global audience. In this regard Google has a two-pronged approach: provide localization functionalities to its products and services and provide an effective set of tools for translation.

The goal of this post is to show and guide the users in discovering and using Google’s Language – related tools to help them use the Google search engine without being too limited by language barriers. Specifically, since this is a post written in English, to help English-speaking users take full advantage of Google’s language tools and translate services.

Google Language Tools
With a direct link from the main Google home page, the Google Language tools has been the one-stop-shop for users’ language needs. You can find it directly at http://google.com/language_tools.

You can do any of the four things available in the Google language tools page:

1. Search specific languages or countries
   Allows you limit your search to web pages of a specific language or located in a specific country/territory.
2. Translate a text snippet or a whole web page from one language to another
   Allows you to quickly translate phrases, words or a sentence from language to another, and translate whole web pages from its current language to the one that you desire (and that google supports)
3. Set your Google preference to use Google in your own language
   Allows you to set the Google home page, messages, and buttons to display in your local language. Google currently supports 17 interface languages
4. Visit other domains for the Google site
   Allows you to visit a specific Google domain for other countries.

The last two things might sound the same to you but here’s the difference: Item number four refers to the different domains that Google offers to cater to different countries and territories. Along with each domain of course is a translated version the Google inteface. But number 3 allows you to change the interface language of the main Google page without going to domain. So where no. 4 brings you both the domain specific to your country and the translated interface, no. 3 brings only the translated interface.

If you can’t find your language in the 17 languages that Google Search currently supports, don’t fret. Google’s “Google in your Language Program” allows you to become a volunteer to help translate the Google Search interface to a language of your choice.