Astrantia – the New Dual Language Browser

EDIT 2019: The programme needs updating, so you cannot register at the moment.

Have you ever come across an interesting article online which wasn’t in your native language but you really wanted to know what it was about? Or, have you read an article in a foreign language, understood most of it but would have liked to see a translation as well?

Of course, you can use Google Translate. Sometimes, the website offers a direct translation, or you need to copy and paste the text into Google Translate to see what it was all about. Both ways aren’t always easy to do.

If only you could see the original text and the translation side by side!

Cue: Astrantia!

Astrantia is a dual language browser which uses Google Translate, but you can see the original and translated text next to each other, like in this picture:

Once you’ve installed the free program onto your computer (Windows only) and have opened it, you’ll see this page:

As you can see, it already comes preset with 5 languages and a variety of newspapers, but you can copy any URL in to view and then translate an article.

As it uses Google translate, the translations won’t be perfect (yet) but if you don’t understand anything at all, it should give you an idea of what the article is about.

You could also use it to turn it into a language exercise and try and correct any possible mistakes in the translation. This could be a useful tool for language teachers.

It also works if your native language isn’t English and you want the articles to be translated into your mother tongue, or if you want to practise translations from English into German or any other language.

The ‘question and answer’ and ‘online help’ tab will explain how to use Astrantia best. Two videos will explain in more detail and you can watch them here to see how good it is even before you get the program.

This just leaves me with two things:

1. If you’d like to try Astrantia, here is the link to register: Astrantia Registration
2. In case you’d like to know where the name comes from, Astrantia stands for A (Angelika, that’s me 😉 ), S (Steven, my partner, who developed the browser), TRAN (the beginning of the word translation) and ASTRANTIA is a beautiful flower in the garden!

Would you like to try it? Register here , download it and start reading all those foreign articles – you even have my permission to read things which aren’t German – enjoy, and maybe come back to tell me what you think!