Compare Chrome extensions: Popup Translate vs Translate Selected Text

Here at Young Bull Industries we have a great love of languages - not just the programming kind, the human kind too! If like we do, you spend a lot of time reading web pages in languages other than English you'll often come across words that are new to you. Fine, you can always look them up - but pulling out a dictionary, going to Word Reference or Google Translate breaks up the flow of your reading and you can lose track of the article.

So it seemed like a great idea to make a Chrome extension which can be used to translate little snippets of text - just individual words or phrases - without leaving the page you're reading.

To get a translation, first highlight the word or words you want to translate, then right click and select the option "Translate 'text to translate'" from the menu, or hit "Alt+T" and the original text and the translation will appear in an alert window.

You can also set the target language (the one to translate into) by clicking on the Young Bull icon in your extensions bar, selecting from the options box and clicking "Save". This option is not only useful for non-native English speakers, but also for English speakers who need to translate a couple of words into another language. For example if you are writing an email in Spanish and you can't remember the correct Spanish for a particular word, just type it in English in your message, select the word, and hit "Alt+T" (making sure you've set Spanish as the target language) and the translation will pop up.