Don’t Understand Arabic?

GOOGLE’S GOT A NEW TOOL THAT MAY HELP.


Haven’t had a chance to test this out yet, but Ben Gross writes that Google has a new translation service that’s actually supposed to be able to handle Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Give it a spin at http://translate.google.com/translate_t. Why’s it matter? Because now, not only can you theoretically read Al-Jazeera’s or Al-Ahram’s sites, but people in Qatar and Egypt should be able to read the New York Times.

If it works well, it should greatly increase intercultural understanding—at least among the small but growing percentage of the world’s population that has a computer and high-speed Internet access.