When Richard Hudson coined the term “hyperpolyglot” back in 2003, the thought of speaking more than six languages fluently still seemed a bit daunting. That, of course, was before the age of Google, and the magic of Google Translate. No, having this handy dandy service won’t suddenly render you fluent in all the languages in the world (fluency is hard, guys), but as far as all the languages in the world are concerned, that may just be getting a bit closer.
On Wednesday, Google announced the addition of 13 new languages to its translation service, bringing the grand total to 103 languages. This covers an astonishing 99 percent of the online population.
Google Translate, an endeavor that first began a decade ago in 2006, initially used machine learning-based translation services to go between English and Arabic, Chinese, and Russian. But now, it’s not just these widely-spoken languages that have been given support. Today’s update brings Amharic, Corsican, Frisian, Kyrgyz, Hawaiian, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Luxembourgish, Samoan, Scots Gaelic, Shona, Sindhi, Pashto, and Xhosa to Google, which helps “bring a combined 120 million new people to the billions who can already communicate with Translate all over the world.”
This impressive new milestone wasn’t a purely technical achievement — indeed, Google notes, “as already existing documents can’t cover the breadth of a language, we also rely on people like you in Translate Community to help improve current Google Translate languages and add new ones.” Thus far, more than 3 million people have added around 200 million translations to the burgeoning Google database.
And as it turns out, if you’re just itching to contribute to the polyglot-ism of the world, you may want to consider joining the Translate Community on February 21, otherwise known as International Mother Language Day. Celebrate your heritage by heading over to Google, selecting the language(s) you speak, and then start translating (or confirming existing translations).
To learn more about the 13 newest languages available in Google Translate, or to start expanding your own linguistic horizons, check out Google’s full blog post on the matter, and join the multilingual party.
A virtual private network (VPN) encrypts your internet traffic and routes it through a server run by the VPN provider. Websites see the VPN server’s IP address instead of yours, and you can get around geo-blocks, censorship, and ISP throttling. The best VPN services are paid, but there are still a handful of free options that do the job well.
Most free VPNs come with a hidden cost, because running servers isn’t cheap and a company that doesn’t charge you has to make its money somewhere else. Many do so by logging your browsing activity and selling it to advertisers, while others flood you with ads and track you across apps.
A stocked computer cache may be convenient for logging into and out of go-to sites in seconds flat, but a major buildup of these tracking codes could significantly impact your PC’s performance. If you’ve noticed that your PC has been running rather slow of late, or you’re using a new browser and don’t know how to clear its cache, we’ve got you covered with the following guide.
If you’re looking to clean up your Gmail inbox, but you don’t want to delete anything permanently, then choosing the archive option is your best bet. Whenever you archive an email, it is removed from your inbox folder while still remaining accessible. Here’s how to access any emails you have archived previously, as well as how to move such messages back to your regular inbox for fast access.