In This Chapter

• Seeing Google in other languages

• Searching for non-English Web sites

• Finding Web sites located in other countries

• Translating Web sites

• Finding a non-English version of Google Toolbar

The global Google has risen. Nobody will be unaffected for long. Google’s internationalism is a profound mission that seeks to provide every literate person with a friendly path into the information matrix. This chapter consolidates all Google language initiatives, some of which are also mentioned in other chapters.

More than other U.S.-based Internet portals, Google has extended itself deeper into non-English territory by recruiting the largest workforce in the world: volunteers. Call it distributed computing with brains. Anyone with proper language skills can participate to whatever extent they are able and willing. Even translating a single word gets you into the project. (More on this later in the chapter.)

Besides person power, Google employs machine translation for certain tasks, much as Lycos pioneered. The two-way interface for acquiring a rough machine translation — whereby you may paste text or have Google go get it — takes multilingual ease-of-use to the next level.

Google presents non-English content in three broad areas:

• Interface: The familiar Google main pages can be displayed in dozens of languages.

• Web pages: Google can limit a search to Web pages written in any of dozens of languages and even to sites residing in certain countries.

• Ad hoc translating: Google is always ready to translate text that you enter, either through typing or posting.

This chapter walks you through each of these areas, and adds a section on finding the Google Toolbar in your favorite language.