Translating foreign language web pages

There are many foreign-language web resources useful to us researchers.  The barrier has always been language.   While some pages have language choice options, the ones most valuable to family researchers do not.  

Here's a really simple way to access those sites: let Google do the translation.   

Install the Google "Chrome" Web browser on your PC.  Follow the instructions in the link below to enable translation.   You can either do a one-time translation or select the option to automatically translate all pages in the specified language.

The  format of the web page will pretty much be the same as the original.  Google translation  is getting better, may 80-90% accurate.  Sufficient to get an understanding.  I certainly wouldn't use it for a legal/official translation, but for our use, more than sufficient.

https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/173424?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop

This opens up a whole world to you.   Most of the time, your browser limits you to site within your region, or English-language sites.  

For example, most villages now have their own web site.  Here’s one to try for fun, it’s my village:  zboj.sk   Notice that sites that originate in each country have their own suffix.  IN this case, it’s .sk.    OMG, my village now offers an English-language option (see the top corner flags).  You can learn tremendous amount about your village and how it operates today.  Most of them throw in a paragraph of history.   Every town puts a different amount of effort into it.   Very good if you’re planning a visit.

Another example is a commercial site in Hungary that offers certain digitized archival documents for free such as ancient Urbariums and Census. https://www.hungaricana.hu/hu/adatbazisok/urbariumok-es-osszeirasok/ has scanned thousands of these pages.   These are not found on genealogy sites. 

My web site, www.iabsi.com points out many of these sites and explains their usefulness. 

This should keep you busy for months, going down rat-holes of knowledge you never thought you’d be able to see.