Language Translator Set-up

One very handy option for your readers, is the ability to translate your Blog into their own language.

Google's Language Tool provides the information for that option.





The script for making the Language Bar, as it's called, is added to an HTML Page Element. The codes for the various Languages are added as they become available from Google. Interfacing a language would not be an easy job, and Google wouldn't have too many people on that particular job, either, I guess.




There are around 300+ languages being spoken in the world, today. There are about 50 available on Google Language Tool - as 'on the fly' translators. There are lots of Languages which you can use as a default language for your Browser, but only 54, or so, will currently work on the Translator/Language Bar option. The key-phrase here is 'on-the-fly' translation.

There languages such as Yiddish, as opposed to Hebrew, which is a language spoken by European and orthodox Jews, but, to my knowledge, is not specific to a country. So which flag do I use? Mmmm. I just used the Israeli flag.

There are also languages spoken in more than one country - eg: Portuguese, Spanish, English.




Yes, sure, there are box translators, which take a few words or phrases and translate them for you, but this Language Bar will actually translate your whole blog. Let's see how...

Each language Google presents, has a code. For instance, France has an ISO code 'fr'. England 'en', Germany 'de'.




The individual Country Flags should, but don't always, follow suit. See the next image.




So, to set-up the Language Bar on your Blog, you need to consider which Language will be the default. In my case it is English. So, all codes will translate from English 'en' to another language, say French 'fr'. So my code will contain the language translator request, "en|fr". That's English to French.

Next, I want to display a little Country Flag. I copy the images from the Flag section that I need, to a file folder on my computer. Then, I upload each one to my html Post Editor, to get the URL. That looks like this:


<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__v4nth5_ki0/SMkcwCtxCHI/AAAAAAAAG9I/OOBSbED4sRc/s320/France+-+fr_flag.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__v4nth5_ki0/SMkcwCtxCHI/AAAAAAAAG9I/OOBSbED4sRc/s200/France+-+fr_flag.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244754852737779826" border="0" /></a>

which would upload this Flag ...



But, I only need the actual URL of the photo. That's -

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__v4nth5_ki0/SMkcwCtxCHI/AAAAAAAAG9I/OOBSbED4sRc/s320/France+-+fr_flag.png


This URL is then embedded in the Translator code for French. Remember your default language in this case, is English. This will work equally well for a default language from any Country, eg: France!

The embedded URL looks like this:-


<input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="Français / French" value="en|fr" type="image" height="20" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__v4nth5_ki0/SMkcwCtxCHI/AAAAAAAAG9I/OOBSbED4sRc/s320/France+-+fr_flag.png" width="30" name="langpair"/>


Then this code is embedded in the Translator Bar code applet (the Gadget) in your html Page Element, along with any others you choose to make. Easy!


The December Update, for 55 languages, is available at the Report.


Latest update - June 2010.


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