Spanish Translation and Quick Word Definition Lookup

The tip in this article is a great time-saving tip for Spanish students and Spanish Translators. This information lets you put away your dictionary -- and no longer have to stop what you're reading to look up a word you need to know. Read on for all the details.

Problem With Reading

One thing that always annoys me a little is reading something in Spanish, and sooner or later I come to a word I don't know the meaning of, and I have to put down what I'm reading, and flip through the dictionary to look it up. -- Meanwhile I've lost my train of thought and my flow about the ideas I was getting from the book. I'd like a faster and less disruptive way to get the definition of the word.

Google Toolbar

Enter the Google Toolbar. The Google Toolbar has a lot of features -- and the list is growing every day. One of the features is called Translation. One of the things the Translation feature lets you do is right-click and translate the page you're viewing into the language of your choice. This is very handy if you're surfing for information that is only available in some language you don't speak.

The Toolbar also has a hover over definition lookup. -- You hover the mouse over an English word and instantly see the definition of the word in Spanish. This is a great feature if you're translation something from English to Spanish. You know most of the words, you go along translating, and with this tool you no longer have to stop and turn to the dictionary for word lookup -- you get the answer right away, right on the computer monitor.

I looked at the options for this feature and it appears that as I write this article it's only available to translate from English to Spanish (or English to several other languages.) but I wouldn't be surprised if soon you're able to translate from Spanish to English as well.

Works with any Electronic Text

I did some experimenting with the Google hover-over translator and found it works with electronic text as well. In other words the text you use doesn't have to be on the Internet, and it doesn't even have to be an html page.

All you have to do is wrap your electronic text in html tags and open in a browser. (changing the extension to html will make this easier.) Then to open the file you can double click the file or in the web browser go to the File menu and select Open. Now any English to Spanish translating you need to do is simply a matter of hovering the mouse over the word -- You'll instantly receive the definition of the word right on the screen. Now the process goes smoothly without the disruption of having to pick up the dictionary.

Conclusion

This is a wonderful, time saving feature that anyone who translates or learns Spanish should be aware of. Like I said before, at the time of this writing it works for English to Spanish -- Let's keep an eye on it and see if soon there is Spanish to English as well.