Making a website available in multiple languages is important, especially if the target audience is international. Google offers two types of solutions to the Translation challenge. One is by straight online translation via a handy translation widget. The second solution is the Google AJAX Language API.

With the AJAX Language API, it’s possible to translate and detect the language of blocks of text within a webpage using only Javascript. With the AJAX Language API for Transliteration, it’s possible to enable transliteration on any textfield or textarea in a webpage. Transliteration is the process of phonetically converting a word written in one script into another. Transliteration should not be confused with translation, which involves a change in language while preserving meaning. With transliteration, it is the sound of the words that are converted from one alphabet to the other.

Code examples are available at the Google AJAX API’s Playground. A useful tutorial how to add inline language translation to a website with Google AJAX API has been written by Amit Agarwal.