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Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Using Google Translate to Help Library Patrons

Google Translate Keyboard for Georgian Alphabet
  
Recently a patron came up to the Reference Desk and asked the librarian on duty to find an English as a second language conversation group somewhere nearby. What made this a challenging question is that the patron did not speak English, but he did know about a Google Translate feature which you can see in the image above. Go to https://translate.google.com/. Choose the language on the left that does not use a standard English keyboard (the Qwerty keyboard that English-speakers use) and select the language you want to translate to on the right side. So for example, if the patron speaks Georgian, he can type on the left side and the translation can appear in English on the right for our English-speaking librarians. By doing this, our BHPL reference librarian found a nearby ESL group for our patron.

Cool, right? Molto bene, non? Sehr gut! and so on.

If you like learning new languages, try our new language database and app 'Pronunciator.'

Related links:
Literacy NJ   
Google translate
Babelfish translator
LiveMocha online language learning

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