Google Translate now available in Hausa

Five new African languages – including Hausa – have just been launched on Google Translate! This has just been announced on Google Africa Blog. Of course one must not expect too much from an automatic translation tool. Especially translating sentences from or to Hausa is difficult, since there are many small words with multiple meanings.

I did a small test today. Translating simple greetings seemed to work: I tried “Ina kwana?” and the correct translation was given “Good morning”. But then the next sentence “Ina gajiya?” was translated as “Tired I?” and “Ina labari?” as “Article I?”

Try it out for yourself here: http://translate.google.com/#ha/en/ and share your experiences with translating Hausa using Google Translate.

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• Google Translate – now in 80 languages (googletranslate.blogspot.com)

Google Translate plans to add five more African Languages

(via Guardian Africa Network) Google is planning to add Somali, Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba and Zulu to its list of language options on Google Translate. A post published on the Google Africa page on Google+ calls on users to evaluate the translation quality of the five languages. (Read more)