I’m writing about free online translation services that you can use for your blogs or webpages because as I have mentioned in my previous post, I have seen some blogs in foreign languages and I’d like to understand what it is about but I can’t find any translation buttons to click for instant translation. Even if your blog or website is in English language, you will have foreign visitors that might need language translation. It obviously becomes almost a necessity to make sure that your web site or blog can be read by other people speaking different languages around the world.

There are free online language translation buttons that you can easily add. Your followers and new visitors can translate your webpage by clicking on their corresponding country flag to translate your websites into their native language.

Help your foreign visitors understand and easily translate your website by installing this codes of free language translation tools into your template. If you are using new blogger, you can just add a new widget and paste any of these HTML codes. You can use these free language translation in any blogging platform including Blogger, Typepad, WordPress that provides access to your templates.

1. Google Translation Flags – these flags are floating and will show side by side with each other in your allotted space. It has no specific format. Here’s how the flags will look like when place in a 160 px sidebar (see my translation buttons at the side bar of this blog).

Copy the code below:
<br /> <form action="http://www.google.com/translate"><script language="JavaScript"><!--document.write (" <input name="u" value="+location.href+" type="hidden">")<br />// --></script><br /> <input value="en" name="hl" type="hidden"> <input value="UTF8" name="ie" type="hidden"> <input value="" name="langpair" type="hidden"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="Arabic" value="en|ar" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/Arabic.gif" width="35" name="langpair"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="Chinese Simplified" value="en|zh-CN" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/Chinese.gif" width="35" name="langpair"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="Dutch" value="en|nl" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/Dutch.gif" width="35" name="langpair"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="French" value="en|fr" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/French.gif" width="35" name="langpair"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="German" value="en|de" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/German.gif" width="35" name="langpair"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="Chinese Traditional" value="en|zh-TW" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/Chinese.gif" width="35" name="langpair"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="Greek" value="en|el" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/Greek.gif" width="35" name="langpair"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="Hindi" value="en|hi" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/Hindi.gif" width="35" name="langpair"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="Italian" value="en|it" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/Italian.gif" width="35" name="langpair2"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="Japanese" value="en|ja" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/Japanese.gif" width="35" name="langpair2"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="Korean" value="en|ko" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/Korean.gif" width="35" name="langpair2"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="Portuguese" value="en|pt" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/Portuguese.gif" width="35" name="langpair2"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="Russian" value="en|ru" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/Russian.gif" width="35" name="langpair2"> <input onclick="this.form.langpair.value=this.value" title="Spanish" value="en|es" type="image" height="23" src="http://technoweird.googlepages.com/Spanish.gif" width="35" name="langpair2"></form> <p>

I’ll show you an example how this buttons work. If I have a foreign visitor, and he decides to click the flag of Japan to translate Bingkay.net into Japanese, here’s how my site will look like.

Everything will be translated except those that stuffs that are controlled by third party codes, like google advertisements and other widget’s content.

2. Alta Vista Babel Fish Translation Box
Simply paste the following code into your blog or website. Alta Vista Babel Fish Translation service is powered by Yahoo. By the way, the picture on the left is the exact size of the translation box.

</p> <p><script language="JavaScript1.2" src="http://www.altavista.com/static/scripts/translate_engl.js"></script>

Here’s how Bingkay.net looks like after clicking the Babel Translation’s German flag for a German translation of the site.

3. Google Translate Gadget – This free google translation service does not take big space from your blog. It’s a neat gadget that supports drop down list of 35 different languages . I am not sure if this gadget will work in other Blogging platform like WordPress, Live Journal and the likes but it will work in both the old and new Blogger blogs.

Here are the steps to get this free translation service:
3.1 Visit the Google Translate Gadget page. (Click here) You will reach this page below.

3.2 Click the Add to Your Webpage button. After clicking, you will see this page.

Customize the look of your google translation gadget. Set your display settings. You can increase the width or height and choose to have a colored border. Set your gadget settings by choosing the languages.

3.3 Click Preview Changes button to see your look of google translation gadget.

3.4 If you’re satisfied with the look of your gadget, you can then click Get the Code button. The code will show below the buttons.

3.5 Copy the code. Paste it somewhere in your blog template if you are using the Classic Blogger or the old Blogger. If you are using Blogger Beta or the New Blogger, you can simply add a HTML widget and paste the code there.

4. Translate Webpage/Blog to English

If you only need translation to English, you can use these flag buttons. You can either use the flag of the English people, United Kingdom or the flag of the Americans, United States of America. Please replace the text that says PASTE YOUR BLOG/WEBSITE URL HERE with your webpage or blog address and change the value of sl. Check the table below.

Example, if your blog is in Filipino, you need to replace the sl value in the code with tl. Example for this blog in the code: a href=”http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=tl&u=http://www.bingkay.net/&……

For the United Kingdom Flag , copy the code below:
<br /><a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=tl&u=PASTE YOUR BLOG URL HERE/&ei=yx6uSd3LFJDe6QOq2IDhBQ&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dfree%2B7%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26pwst%3D1%20"><img border="2" src="http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i15/bingkay_2006/englishflag.jpg" style="width: 47px; height: 30px" /></a></p> <p>

For the USA flag , here’s the code:

<br /><a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=tl&u=PASTE YOUR BLOG URL HERE/&ei=yx6uSd3LFJDe6QOq2IDhBQ&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dfree%2B7%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26pwst%3D1%20"><img border="2" src="http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i15/bingkay_2006/USflag.jpg" style="width: 47px; height: 30px" /></a></p> <p>

That’s all for now. I hope you have fun.