Twitter Adds a Translation Tool Provided by Bing
Twitter just added a new translation function that will help you better understand tweets written in other languages. In order to do so, the social network partnered up with the Microsoft's search engine and translation service, Bing. This new feature is compatible with iOS, Android, desktops (web version) as well as TweetDeck.
The way this works is pretty simple. Whenever a tweet is written in a different language than the one selected in your settings, you may see a globe icon in its top right corner. (The icon appears only if the translation between the respective language and yours is supported). If the icon is present, all you have to do is click or tap it to expand the tweet, and Twitter will automatically provide you with a translation of the written text. In all honesty, it's most likely not going to be a perfect translation, but it will surely help you figure out the message that is being transmitted.
Bing Translator, the service that's actually making this possible, is capable of translating between 40 language pairs, so there won't be many situations when you will not be able to understand what the other person is talking (tweeting) about. In case you don't like it, the translation functionality can easily be disabled by going to your account settings and turning off the option marked as show tweet translations. Twitter hopes that this new addition to its services will help people overcome language barriers and offer its users better ways to communicate with each other.
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