Google Translate Gets Reverse, Frequencies And Synonyms

Google has launched some new Google Translate features: reverse translations, frequencies and synonyms.

“Our users often tell us that they check our translations by translating them back into their original language,” says Google in a blog post. “Reverse translations can distinguish translations of different meanings and reveal subtle differences among similar words. Each translation is now annotated with its most frequent reverse translations.”

“The French novelist Gustave Flaubert was known to spend hours on end in pursuit of le mot juste—the perfect word,” Google adds. “At Google, we prefer to deliver results in an instant, ranked in order of relevance. Frequency indicators now mark each translation as common, uncommon, or rare, based on the vast number of translations we use to train our system. The rarest translations are hidden by default, but appear easily with a click. Your search for the perfect translation should now be more efficient than ever.”

Google has been doing a lot of work with synonyms lately, particularly in search. Now, we’re seeing some improvements in Google Translate as well. Results will now group synonymous translations together. The feature is only available when translating to English at this point, but Google says it intends to support more languages soon.