Google has just announced that they are beginning to roll out a new native translation feature inside Google+.
With Google Translate inside Google+, you’ll see a “Translate” link directly underneath any text that’s in a foreign language. Simply click the link and watch the text translated in-line, and click again to return to the original text.
“The Google Translate team is always working to make information more accessible to individuals around the world. In Google+ this means bringing people together regardless of their written language, and breaking down language barriers that can limit the exchange of ideas,” says Google’s Ed Chi.
As you may recall, Google launched a Chrome extension that let you translate any post of comment into 50 different languages back in 2011. Apparently, Google’s just going to let that extension waste away now that it’s unnecessary.
“I believe the chrome extension is still working, but it probably won’t get maintained and will probably deprecate soon,” says Chi.
Chi suggests that the translate function could come to mobile in the future, but stopped shy of saying it was a definite thing. He says that nearly all Google+ users should see the new translate function within the next 2 days.
This gets Google+ up the speed with Facebook, who’s used Bing-powered in-line translations for a few years. A couple of months ago, Twitter began testing Bing translations as well.