Our problem was that a young lady came in to the CVGS Table Talk several weeks ago who did not read English - and we didn't have anything in Spanish to help her.
Gena Ortega described Google Language Tools during her talk at CGSSD last Saturday, and I decided to "play" with it today to see if I could turn a useful English article about Hispanic research into a useful Spanish article. I chose Kimberly Powell's excellent two page article titled Mexico Genealogy 101 -
Tracing Your Family Tree in Mexico. The screen showing Kimberly's article is below:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgErly8OkltnJlO-Ni73dZN8iw_xytfpkYsSVxJr67pyonJ4geVYRAuxcm0EFNXXaHYDfNJ5V-8sfu81ZPu841S2msmcOAOna7N0Z8OW8EaHDgIYHbs9o2ALj8gfbx_hpnf8EVQ/s320/01-mexico.jpg)
I highlighted the URL and went to Google Language Tools, and entered the URL in the "Translate a web page" box, and picked "English" to "Spanish":
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0_-alCoOC5h_RGQ86oY36h4F5dFwbUmShJngFjM2hyq7XC0G9200UVXthuYYyCLhx7T3FOmo-NMBVttkpRChFMlW5XD4_OQhDOduk8DYi1Clws9dUOxDvlFWMax0brr3GTR2B/s320/02-mexico.jpg)
The resulting page - in Spanish - looked like this:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1MaZduSPkwA466eZGCnM7kNiXh6OzzJsbMHVphqzXEjLErzVyrIEoSwpmpwHSm3uexR-aNQgPFRrm4cNEvezwT6KG6-M96nTdpRP6ztn-UHQNVsSdnMjQNmDBB8y4iCsbFQ3B/s320/03-mexico.jpg)
The neat thing is that you can run your cursor over a translated sentence and see the English equivalent, as shown below:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHxgeDFoGS_FwSYJMWi88mT43jaRBd9M5HSEJaV3uZSoH_tHMA5-FKpszrR93LpyXr-HR5GgMiV0U7Wd9sHT8syiriXrhtu3_96VtuaQq4zi6XkTKA0bcIDE63vYM5lor17GuI/s320/04-mexico.jpg)
That's wonderful, isn't it? I wondered how well the text in Spanish would translate back into English. So I highlighted and copied two paragraphs of the Spanish text:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilaHcVcUqVpPB1p0fjB8_wLoMas_NMQ4MmBAIIAdkFF2zCfvRSRo76MmIZDJoxH8ZexuB2vSW-SS3prgKBC1LI1q9W2kFT-GaqpCbpMyQgHy111dcrVnymUH-5i-hBt_YkgoQ3/s320/05-mexico.jpg)
I went back to Google Language Tools, pasted the highlighted two paragraphs into the "Translate text" box, and checked "Spanish" to "English," as shown below:
Voila again, the next screen showed both versions (Spanish on the left, English on the right):
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ZM_Qu68eHsuA_Tm0hVyV5SW4_jXRt36sF0dnW9JgIcP3Yuyi5cy2V58f1xknTPTVaYzO_jY74tSEpx68F5ra5VCERUYKISxVjk3pRGfRywv10mPQ4MR2QFFW0Rg7KD1Dgf8h/s320/07-mexico.jpg)
Comparing the two versions in English - the first two paragraphs from Kimberly's article in the first screen and the two paragraphs in the last screen - shows just minor differences.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ZM_Qu68eHsuA_Tm0hVyV5SW4_jXRt36sF0dnW9JgIcP3Yuyi5cy2V58f1xknTPTVaYzO_jY74tSEpx68F5ra5VCERUYKISxVjk3pRGfRywv10mPQ4MR2QFFW0Rg7KD1Dgf8h/s320/07-mexico.jpg)
Comparing the two versions in English - the first two paragraphs from Kimberly's article in the first screen and the two paragraphs in the last screen - shows just minor differences.
OK, that looks like a useful tool to help persons who have Internet access. How can I use it to help the young lady, or some other inquirer, with a Spanish translation if they don't have Internet access?
Ah, I could print out the Spanish translation from the Google Language Tools page! I did that, and now have a nice little handout for anyone who comes along and doesn't read English well. At least we can get them started.
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