Click HERE for my Chinese Edition. Cool?
Actually, any web page can be auto-translated in this fashion by Google. It’s a really cool feature though I’m guessing the translations must leave something to be desired. My understanding is that you still need humans to pull quality meaning from one language to another. Still, this is a huge step forward and the advent of hand held translation units, online translation, and a lot more global travel is breaking down one of the barriers to international understanding – language.
China is expected to be the world’s top travel destination by 2020 and I don’t doubt that estimate. It is one of the reasons I’m anxious to get over there to SES China in Xiamen, the Xianglu Grand Hotel (though I’m not clear if this is the SES China venue or not), The Great Wall of China, Beijing and the Forbidden City, Hong Kong Harbor, Hong Kong, Kowloon, and much more of the amazing China Travel landscape. I want to start exploring and understanding the nation and culture that may eventually eclipse the USA in terms of global influence (I’m not predicting that – just noting it is a possibility. What is a certainty is that China will continue to be one of the most influential nations for some time to come). One of the most interesting graphs I have ever seen showed the global GDP of about 1850, noting that India+China were over half the global totals, and the USA was not even in the same league. The USA’s remarkable industrial rise since that time led us to the global economic dominance we now enjoy, but things could change … again. I don’t see this shift in Economic dominance as a negative, rather more an inevitable balancing and levelling of an increasingly globalized playing field – the world Tom Friedman has described so well in his book “The World is Flat”.
Joe Duck 
I used to use the page translators a few years back when I had lots of competitor websites in Japanese to translate and was overwhelmed, and you are right that it left much to be desired. It’s cool, but even what Google has now isn’t much better than 5-6+ years ago. Just the other night I toyed with the Google version for the first time and wound up breaking out my dictionary (well, OK, an online dictionary). If the technology ever *really* gets there, it will be very cool and very connecting. For now, at least it can help with some basic understanding when it’s not almost funny how “off” it is.
Enjoy China! I only got to Hong Kong, but I loved every minute of it (except those few hours that night when I got hopelessly very lost, in dark streets, in some area where they were cutting up and selling fish and chickens and didn’t speak any English – just a few too many stops away from Tsim Sha Tsui where I called my high rise dump “home” for the trip – ah, the days…).
Hey, thanks Maggie – I’m really excited about this trip. In Hong Kong English is still very commonly spoken, right?
Joe, if you stick to the main tourist areas in Hong Kong, there is plenty enough English spoken to get along just fine. Probably even more so in the real hotels and nice restaurants instead of the (scary-ish) backpacker place I stayed. I got by just fine without speaking any Chinese (though being able to read some things helped), except when I got pretty far off the beaten path while exploring. Even then, I bet some spoke English, but it just wasn’t as evident.
I’m jealous because I never made it to the mainland or to Taiwan. Someday. I hope. I’m excited for you!
I’m jealous, too. The food’s so good there! Especially if you make it down to Shanghai and those parts. MMMmmm. And if you check out the Great Wall – try and get to the most remote section – I think there’s generally three spots where tourists go, the furthest one out is the most remote and least packed. Wish I was there!
Thx Maggie and Felix – if I have internet access, which is suppposed to be easy in China, I’ll try to post pix every day as we journey around. Some of the trip will be with a friend who was born in Beijing and speaks Chinese so that’ll help. Felix I keep hearing about the food and really looking forward to eating out, especially noodles…
Google have best language translator – it translates quite perfectly – definitely a useful software provided by google and its free. very useful for travelers
generally travelers use it during thr travel to particular destinations