I think the language "to" should be derived either:
- by the user settings (that are saved by cookies in some way or another)
- the version of the google used (if I am using google in english -
google.com - it should be in english, if I am using google.com.hk it
should be in Chinese?)

What I would also like is that the language "from" is simply set to
Automatic. This was my original query.

I see why you might want to swap, but at the same time I feel the
language "from" should be derivable by the text being translated
anyway (so set to automatic).

I understand Zabeus proposed a valid way around the problematic, but
frankly I will not use it. If it's about using bookmarks I might as
well use some other tool that might be better adapted anyway. I use
google out of convenience not for the quality of the translation.

Thanks!
Ben.

2008/9/5 Andrew_E2 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> Thank you Zabeus
>
> This is exactly what I needed to know.  It frustrates me no end that
> it defaults to Spanish->English.
>
> Saying that, I'm going to have to have one set up for Ja->En and one
> for En->Ja.  Couldn't google add a "swap" button so you can them
> translate in reverse?
>
> Also, it's in our google account what our interface language selection
> is, so it would be reasonable (and very easy) to default to this and
> the language of the location you are in (again, easy!), with the swap
> button there.  So, if I was in France and went to google translate it
> would default to English -> French (Swap?)
>
> Does anyone else this this would be useful?
>
> Andrew
>
> On Sep 4, 7:56 pm, Zabeus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I can't address your question about why the default is Spanish->English, but 
>> have a suggestion that might help. Update your bookmark
>>
>> to Google translate by adding "langpair=auto|en" to the URL, like
>> this:
>> ->http://translate.google.com/translate_t?langpair=auto|en
>> This will make the defaults for both website and text translation
>> Default->English. You can set the "langpair" field to any combination
>> of language codes too. I use Translate for translating Japanese to
>> English, and have a bookmark buttons on my Firefox bookmark bar for
>> quick,  convenient JA->EN translation.
>>
>> Z.
>>
>> On Aug 29, 11:41 pm, Behrang Dadsetan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> > Dear Google Translate Group members,
>>
>> >    I use Google translate everytime I need a quick translation from
>> > Chinese to English. Mostly I use the textbox to translate some text
>> > rather than a whole web page. What I describe here relates to both
>> > text translation and web site translation.
>>
>> >   When I visit translate.google.com it automatically forwards me 
>> > tohttp://translate.google.com/translate_t?hl=en#
>> > This could be due to my language preferences set-up in the browser or
>> > cookies set-up by iGoogle or other that know I prefer to see english.
>> > That's just fine.
>>
>> >   When I look at the drop-downs just below the textbox and the URL
>> > text fields, I see invariably:
>> > "Spanish" => "English"
>>
>> >   Why "Spanish"? I am sure plenty of people would need such
>> > translations, but there are plenty more people who would need to
>> > translate from other languages.
>>
>> >   I wonder why you would not use "Detect language" >> "English"?
>>
>> >   Is the Auto-detect not clever enough to figure out when the
>> > translation source is spanish? I am sure it is a difficult process and
>> > more an art than a science, but I love it so much when Google gets the
>> > right defaults for me, I wish it could do so on this one too :)
>>
>> >   An alternative would be for google to use one of its dozens of
>> > cookies to track what language I tend to translate from. Would that
>> > not be a better solution than forcing me to switch away from Spanish
>> > every single time I use the translate tool?
>>
>> > Many thanks!
>> > Behrang Dadsetan
>
> >
>

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