ImTranslator is a Firefox add-on that translates between 1640 language combinations from within your browser.
The internet is great for making new friends. The only problem is that even though you and your new friends might share interests, you might not actually share a language. When you're trying to chat by instant messenger, that can be a real problem.
You're bound to be able to get your message across with ImTranslator. When you install the add-on, it adds an extra option to the context menu. This option will bring up a new window, with a field for the original text above, translation options in the middle, and the translation below. The ImTranslator translations held up well in testing, but with a few of the usual problems. Among other options, you can set ImTranslator to auto-detect source language, perform back translations, easily switch direction between two languages and carry out basic editing functions, like cutting and pasting.
The major problem with ImTranslator is that once you have translated what you need, you will always need to cut and paste into your messaging client. To use the program's other functions, such as spell-checking, text-to-voice and dictionary, ImTranslator opens up a new window, which means the whole process is not very fluid. Since this forces you to jump back and forth between two or more windows, it is not any easier than using a web-based service such as Google Translate.
Although it isn't revolutionary, ImTranslator translates quite accurately between a large number of languages.
