The technology giant is rolling out a new feature to all Gmail users over the next days that will make email communication with those who speak a different language much easier.

Using the new feature, when a Gmail user receives an email in a foreign language, the recipient can easily translate the unknown language into their native tongue with a single click. By selecting the Translate message option in the header of the email, an English-speaking user can easily read an email that was sent in Japanese, for example.

Now, let’s say you’re bi-lingual and don't need translation for that language, simply click on Turn off for: [language]. Or if you'd like to automatically have messages in that language translated into your language, click Always Translate.

And if you accidentally turned off the message translation feature for a particular language, or don't see the Translate message header on a message, just click on the down arrow next to Reply at the top-right of the message pane and select the Translate message option in the drop-down.

Jeff Chin, the Product Manager for Google Translate, highlighted the practicality of the new feature.

“We heard immediately from Google Apps for Business users that this was a killer feature for working with local teams across the world. Some people just wanted to easily read newsletters from abroad.”

”Another person wrote in telling us how he set up his mom’s Gmail to translate everything into her native language, thus saving countless explanatory phone calls (he thanked us profusely). I continue to use it to participate in discussions with the global Google offices I often visit," Chin added.

Most people know by now that Google Translate, or any automatic/machine translation is far from being 100% accurate. For translation of high quality and accuracy, one must rely on the services of a professional, human translatior, or at least human editing of machine translation. This is also known as Post-Editing of Machine Translation, or PEMT.

Alex Dupont

See Also

• More about machine translation
  Raw machine translation may be sufficient for communicating via social networks. However, you may have to consider human translation if you require high quality.
• Say hello (or olá or halo or salam) to automatic message translation in Gmail - Official Gmail Blog
  We're excited to announce three Gmail Labs graduations today: Automatic Message Translation, Smart Mute and Title Tweaks.
• PEMT
  Post-Editing of Machine Translation