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Using Google as a Hindi to English dictionary

Posted on: August 11, 2008 ⋅Last modified: August 15, 2008 @ 3:12 pm
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Recently, an employee at a client’s place was trying to understand an article in Hindi. She came across a word मूल्य वर्धित (Mulya Vardhit) in Hindi. She wanted to know its meaning. Me and other people in the room started guessing and arguing, based on the context, in which the term was used. But no one was sure. Leaving others to guess, I did the following:

  1. Went to Google Indic Transliteration at http://www.google.com/transliterate/indic
  2. Typed in Mulya Vardhit (in English) in the text area. It showed me Mulya Vardhit in Hindi (note that this is transliteration and not translation).
  3. Selected Mulya Vardhit in Hindi, right clicked and selected Copy. Basically copied Mulya Vardhit’s text in Hindi.
  4. Note: The above step saved me from typing in Hindi using a Hindi virtual keyword (for example).
  5. Then I went to Google Translate at http://translate.google.com/translate_t
  6. On the tab “Text and Web”, I pasted (CTRL-V) the hindi text into the text area (labelled as “Original Text”).
  7. From the dropdowns, I selected Hindi >> English.
  8. Clicked on Translate.
  9. I popped up and declared to everyone that “Mulya Vardhit” stands for “Value Added”. The person was reading an article about mobile services and the article was talking about some “value added” servcies.

Obviously there may be other, quicker or better ways to Hindi to English. But this is the Google way!

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Discussion

3 comments for “Using Google as a Hindi to English dictionary”

  1. It’s nice finding. bcz it’s quite tough to install the dictinory like “Hindi to English ” or “Enlish to Hindi” on computer.
    so it’s very quicker way to the find words meaning.

    FYI..
    google has implemented this logic on most of his site like “www.orkut.com” etc.

    Posted by pankaj | August 11, 2008, 3:33 pm

  2. Slightly long drawn process, but I am sure you have provided some “mulya vardha” (value addition” here.

    Might be a good idea to check out it translation works for complete sentences, even paragraphs.

    Also, have you tested this for other Indian languages?

    Posted by Sharat Jain | August 11, 2008, 4:09 pm

  3. Slightly long drawn process

    Well, its kinda opening the two Google sites in Web Browser tabs. Write, copy, paste, click translate.

    Might be a good idea to check out it translation works for complete sentences, even paragraphs.

    You can use the translation for an entire website. For example:

    http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sharatjain.com&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=en&tl=hi

    Note the title of your blog ;-)

    After noticing the title, please note that most sentences in the Blog entries have gone meaningless.

    When Google translation services for Hindi was launched, I floated it around in a mailing list for Hindi language consultants. To summarize the responses – “not bad as an initial effort, by Google”. No one commended about its quality or accuracy.

    United Nations India (who is a client) has been looking for a translation service. Had tested Google Translate against some of the UN web sites and found examples like SE (which stands for Solution Exchange) was expanded and translated to Dakshin Purv (दक्षिण पूर्व).

    Also, have you tested this for other Indian languages?

    Are you trying to cross check that I indeed can’t read (and write) Tamil ? ;-)

    Posted by Shekhar | August 11, 2008, 4:28 pm

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