The first and perhaps most useful of the new tools is a Google Translate gadget you can affix to your blog. You likely compose your blog in one language or, if you’re a polyglot, maybe you dabble around in multi-lingual posts to add an air of mystery to your fine words. At any rate, there’s always a chance that someone may not read the language you wrote your post in, but fret no longer. Now they won’t have to miss out on your dizzying command of your language because if you add the Google Translate gadget to your page, your blog can be automatically translated into any of over 50 languages that Translate supports.

Then again, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where someone who doesn’t speak your language would not only come across your blog but also have the overwhelming desire to read it since, due to the language barrier, that visitor presumably has no idea what you’re blogging about.

Moving along, the second and third new gadgets that are now available on Blogger are pretty similar to the Blog List, which keeps track of the other blogs that you enjoy and recommend – I believe the nomenclature for such a list is “blog roll.” The first of the two, Link List, is described as such: “Add a collection of your favorite sites, blogs, or web pages.” Given you already have a feature to keep track of and promote blogs and other sites with Blog List, this one feels slightly redundant. However, maybe you have a high demand for organization and want to keep your blog roll separate from lists with non-blog sites, like the Washington Post or the BBC.

With the final addition to the Blogger inventory of tools, List allows you to simply type up some things (…) about what you like, such as your favorite books or foods or, really, anything you want. It’s just a text list, so you can do whatever you want with it. Throw a recipe in there. List your favorite parts of the periodic table. Recount the first names of all your exes. Do you see the extraordinary possibilities contained with this one? Given that this is kind of what you’ve already been doing on your blog, this seems a little redundant, too, but maybe you can use it as a quick reference list for your readers, especially now that you’re going to be building up your international audience.

[Via Blogger Buzz.]

These new features apply to the eBooks web reader. Now you can define, translate and search specific words within the text easily, with two clicks of the mouse. Either double click or highlight a single word within a Google eBook, and a menu will pop up with five options: Search, Translate, Search Book, Search Google and Search Wikipedia.

These new features only work in “flowing text” mode, not “scanned pages” mode. Note that some books can be switched over to flowing text mode, but not all Google eBooks are available as such.

Defining a word will pull from Google Dictionary, and it will pop up right on the page instead of navigating away. Many words will also have the audio icon next to them, so you can hear the words pronounced without leaving the page. If you click “more,” you’ll be taken to the full Google Dictionary page for the word in question.

You can also translate words or even entire paragraphs into any of the languages Google offers in its translate service. For the Hatian Creole struggling with his Bulgarian text, this function is for them.

The final new functions offered are search functions. “Search Book” will search the selected word or phrase throughout the book you’re reading. “Search Google” and “Search Wikipedia” will open up a new window and do a full search of the word or phrase in the respective engines.

Oh, and first person to identify the book used in the demonstrations gets (doesn’t really get) 10 internet bucks! (Shouldn’t be too hard, people)

Over on the Google Blog, they give us a couple examples of the musicality of their translate application.

When we built Google Translate we thought it was a cool tool, but we have to admit we had fairly straightforward ideas about what it would be useful for (lowering language barriers and making more web content available to people around the world). As with many inventions, though, it turns out people have found uses for the tool that we never imagined. Recently, two clever Translate trends caught our eye—perhaps one of them will inspire you to come up with a fun Translate trick of your own.

Oh, Google – you thought people would use applications for their intended purpose…bwahaha.

First up, watch as the English to German translation tool is used to create a simply beatbox. If you want to go to Google translate now and try it yourself, just enter a bunch of p’s, v’s, k’s and other hard consonants and the little blue icon will actually change from “listen” to “beatbox.”

Google didn’t put this one on the blog, but I like it:

In Taiwan, the Google Translate music trend has really caught fire. Someone uploaded a video of Chinese phrases being translated, and set to music. This video was a top YouTube trend, garnering half a million views a couple weeks ago. It was one of the most viewed videos in Taiwan:

And then there’s this…whatever this may be:

She sure didn’t get to 10 million followers with stuff like that.