Google Translate Firefox Extension
When I write for this site, I use many different tools1. To spice up the language a little, I use Thesaurus.com. Dictionary.com is a life saver when I want to look up definitions of words. And Google Translate is handy because English is my second language, and I often find myself in need of a little translation from Norwegian.
Both Thesaurus.com and Dictionary.com are easily available through Firefox search engine integrations. I simply open a new tab, hit either t for thesaurus or d for dictionary, enter the word I’m looking for, and the respective site in queried. It’s all very convenient. For a while I’ve been looking for a similar solution for Google Translate, but I’ve found none. The Firefox extensions that exist for Google Translate are either massive feature creeps, or very limited.
I needed a simple extension that made it possible to translate between any of the languages supported by Google Translate. And what’s the programmer’s approach when we have a problem that isn’t already solved by someone else? We solve it ourselves, of course!
Presenting: The Google Translate (all languages) Extension
Getting the extension up and running turned out to be surprisingly easy. The documentation is clear and concise, and the examples are plentiful. The end result is the Google Translate (all languages) Firefox extension, and it solves my problem beautifully.
Now I can open a new tab, write gt no en fylkestrafikksikkerhetsutvalgssekretariatslederfunksjonene, and hit enter. The extension will automagically open Google Translate with the URL to get the correct translation from Norwegian to English. If I wanted to translate to another language, I’d simply replace en in the query with the two-letter code for that language, like es for Spanish. Boom.
If you’re using Firefox, please go ahead and install the extension. The code is available on github if you want to tinker with it. Pull requests are always welcome.
Update 2018-05-11: The extension’s usage statistics are now available.
For an insight into my creative process - haha - why don’t you have a look at my guide to joyful writing? ↩︎
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