BabelFish Instant Translation

Thursday, Apr 15, 2010

A fast, easy, customizable language translation interface. Switch seamlessly between two dictionaries for confident translation of words, sentences and paragraphs.

In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams first introduced us to Babel Fish as a beneficial ear parasite. While not at all equally intrusive, the benefit of both the fictitious Babel Fish and today’s add-on is essentially the same: translation.

I’m embarrassed to admit I speak only one language and rarely stray far enough from my flock to have a pressing need for internet translation. My biggest online translation challenge usually consists of clicking on the Union Jack. So I was surprised to discover that Babel Fish was the add-on I never knew I always needed.

I’m currently planning a trip to Italy, and hunting down obscure and fascinating places to visit, like the “Tarot Garden“.


At first I thought BabelFish only translated one word at a time, just like my pocket dictionary. But then I visited the Preferences and changed my settings from “Doubleclick (words only)” to “Highlighting Text”:

What was first slow going now makes great sense:

Once BabelFish is installed, you’ll see a yellow fish icon in the bottom right of your browser. Click the fish to set the language you’d like to translate. Then double click (or whatever action you choose in Preferences) a word on a Web page and see the translation in an easy blue bar. The bar offers clickable ways to switch between Google and Yahoo dictionaries for double checking, right then and there.

There’s even a button in the translation pop-up that lets you copy the text onto your clipboard for easy editing.

BabelFish can translate more than 25 languages. Why not let it make your life easier?

Post from Elise Allen, who was planning her trip to Italy one word at a time before she installed BabelFish. See all posts by Elise Allen.

16 comments

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  1. Kat

    this is so cool my son is going to love it….thanks….hope everyone loves this ideal..

    April 15th, 2010 at 5:25 pm

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  2. firefoxfan

    Very useful add on… great…

    April 15th, 2010 at 6:36 pm

    Reply

  3. Kecske

    Using the same name for a translation extension that has already been used for many, many years for a very popular online translation service (Yahoo’s, so you must know about it), was not very thoughtful.

    April 16th, 2010 at 6:18 am

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    1. Doi Haveto

      Yah, except I think this is Yahoo’s translation service, what with the same icon and all.

      May 29th, 2010 at 7:09 pm

      Reply

  4. Nuzulamir

    BebelBebel Membebel………

    April 16th, 2010 at 11:59 am

    Reply

  5. T Mellor

    Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy add-on FTW!

    April 28th, 2010 at 8:51 am

    Reply

  6. hassan model

    thanks for this nice program . but i dont find farsi language.

    May 5th, 2010 at 12:18 pm

    Reply

  7. mamazboi

    A good and accurate translation add-on.

    May 6th, 2010 at 5:40 pm

    Reply

  8. iqbal ahmed

    Made complications easy. Cool.

    May 6th, 2010 at 10:55 pm

    Reply

  9. Cindy

    Great points! I will be checking back here often!

    May 9th, 2010 at 11:00 pm

    Reply

  10. Elise Allen

    One thing to note about BabelFish is that it utilizes external translation services offered by Google or Yahoo, so if they go through changes, it will be reflected in your BabelFish experience.

    Also, if you click on the BabelFish icon in your browser what you see is a list of “shown languages”. There are actually more languages available, but you have to add them:

    Go Tools -> BabelFish Preferences, to the second tab: “Available Languages”. There you’ll see two lists: “All BabelFish languages” and “Shown languages”. You can add or remove languages to your list of “Shown Languages” and then they’ll show up the next time you visit the browser icon list.

    Thanks,
    Elise

    May 17th, 2010 at 8:05 pm

    Reply

  11. oppidese

    I love this add-on and use it everyday. On one of my notebooks I cannot adjust any of the preferences because the options box is so large the top and bottom of the box are off screen. I can’t click apply or even close the box or move it at all.

    May 18th, 2010 at 8:47 am

    Reply

  12. lukaz1010

    I LOVE IT !!!!

    July 18th, 2010 at 5:11 am

    Reply

  13. pozycjonowanie google

    Nice site and great text.

    August 27th, 2010 at 7:27 am

    Reply

  14. adam

    Can you add the Bing translator in your plugins please .

    March 11th, 2011 at 8:27 am

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  15. Reisegutscheine Team

    Great Plugin, we are currently working on translating a lot of things and I have searched for a plugin like this that I can use with Firefox to make our tasks easier. Thanks, this will make the translation process much smoother.

    April 13th, 2011 at 3:54 am

    Reply

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