OREANDA-NEWS. December 8, 2009. Yandex search offers automated translation of foreign websites into Russian. Automated translation solution was provided by PROMT. Currently, the new feature is only partially available to end-users, but anyone can join the testing at: http://tune.yandex.ru/perevod/.

Yandex finds answers to users’ questions both on Russian and on foreign websites: a third of documents indexed by Yandex are in languages other than Russian. Yandex search supports translations from five languages – English, German, Spanish, Italian and French. Now, even those who cannot read English can learn how to make a proper Chester Pudding - Yandex will find the authentic recipe and translate it into Russian. And those travelling to, say, Seattle, but not speaking English, can read all about this city on its official website – Yandex will do the translation, page by page. Users can just click on ‘Translate’ next to the links to foreign websites in the search results.

“About 15% search queries on Yandex use the Roman alphabet, and search results for these queries often refer to foreign websites,” says Lidya Popelo, project manager. “Automated translation, naturally, isn’t the same thing as what a professional translator would do, but it allows understand the meaning of retrieved text”.

“Online website translation is one of the most popular features today”, says Boris Tikhomirov, head of internet projects at PROMT. “The new translation feature on Yandex search enhances user experience and breaks down language barriers when reading”.