Search is undoubtedly Google’s most valuable asset and its most used product which makes perfect sense given that Search is how Google became Google. With this in mind, it’s a big reason that we see Google updating Search with all kinds of new functions on a consistent basis. They’re always trying to improve their main product so that it performs better for users. Following on the heels of the recent Google Translate anniversary for having been launched ten years ago, Google is now implementing an automatic translation of foreign words in Search whenever a user types up the foreign word into the search box.
Although not necessarily because of the 10-year celebration of Translate, the timing of this new feature addition for Search seems fitting. Users will now notice that when they open up Google and type a word in the search box in a foreign language, the results will show up in a card at the top of the list above any search results links with the translation next to the foreign word. Although not a drastic change compared to asking Google to translate something, it should be able to shave off a second or two by taking away the need to type up more than the word itself that someone wants to translate.
While it wouldn’t be too outlandish to think that Google could eventually implement this type of automatic translation into Search for longer sentences, at the moment the auto translation functionality will only apply to words, and a various selection of, albeit small, different expressions. With the auto translations popping up in a nifty little card atop the results, there is also a small link that users can either click (or tap, as this works on mobile search as well) to have the translation opened up in Google Translate if they wish. This should also work for any foreign words that are typed up in any of the languages that are supported by Translate, and if type a word up in one language and get an auto-translated result for something like English, you can click the drop down arrow by the language to change it up if you need to.