Gmail Translations: Who Needs It?
A new feature was recently introduced on Gmail that may be enabled by users to translate email messages automatically on Gmail.
Update: The feature has since then been integrated into Gmail. It is no longer necessary to enable it in Labs before it can be used. You should see a translate option on top of all foreign language emails that you can use to translate it to another language.
If you don't see the link, click on the down arrow icon next to the reply button, and select "translate message" from the menu that opens. Translation of certain languages can be turned off again as well.
As you can see, options to translate foreign emails are displayed directly on Gmail. Update End
The feature is currently available in the Labs section in the Gmail settings.
The Message Translation add-on enables you to translate incoming email messages with a click of the mouse button. A "translate message to" option is displayed when you are viewing emails on Gmail that are not in your native language.
A user from the United States would see the option for emails not written in English while a German would see the option for all non-German emails that are in the inbox.
The feature has to be activated in the Labs tab of the Settings before it becomes available. It is possible to change the language that the message should get translated to in the same menu. The translated email will be displayed in the same spot that the original email occupied without reloading the rest of the page. The quality of the translations is equal to those of Google Translate.
A great way of testing the quality is to enter a text into Google Translate, translate that text to another language and translate that text back to the original language. The general consensus is that it is possible to understand the meaning of the original text in most cases.
But who needs the translation service? It might be interesting for users who receive lots of email messages in languages that they do not understand. But how likely is that scenario? The average Internet user receives the majority of emails in the native language and if that is not English then in English as well. It might be helpful in some cases, for example running an eBay auction and receiving an inquiry from a foreign language speaking user.
Verdict:
Yes, some Gmail users might find this new translation add-on handy. The majority of users on the other hand will most likely ignore it as its use case is limited.
You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!