This news item expired on Wednesday, August 31, 2011 so the information below could be outdated or incorrect.
To better assist our citizens, Buncombe County has introduced Google Translate to BuncombeCounty.org. This feature allows users to convert any page on our site into several different languages.
What Is Google Translate?
Google Translate is a free translation service that provides instant translations between 58 different languages. It can translate words, sentences and web pages between any combination of our supported languages. With Google Translate, we hope to make information universally accessible and useful, regardless of the language in which it’s written.
Find Out How the Translations Are Created
How Does It Work?
When Google Translate generates a translation, it looks for patterns in hundreds of millions of documents to help decide on the best translation for you. By detecting patterns in documents that have already been translated by human translators, Google Translate can make intelligent guesses as to what an appropriate translation should be. This process of seeking patterns in large amounts of text is called "statistical machine translation".
Since the translations are generated by machines, not all translation will be perfect. The more human-translated documents that Google Translate can analyze in a specific language, the better the translation quality will be. This is why translation accuracy will sometimes vary across languages.
For more information, including which languages are supported, visit the Google Translate website.