If you would like to subscribe to a blog or other feed in a language you are not speaking, Google Reader now offers an auto-translate feature for you. Just subscribe to a specific feed, say, the German GoogleWatchBlog. Then check “Feed settings” -> “Translate into my language”.
Here is a sample post translation from that blog done with Google Reader:
"Google now also with profiles Kontaktierungsmöglichkeit
"After Google profiles meanwhile also for search engines available, should a large proportion of visitors to that person no longer personally know and have no contact possibilities. Since the show the e-mail address usually a very bad idea, Google now offers the possibility of the owner of the profile to contact us directly."
In other words, the quality may be good enough to get certain points across (perhaps the more the closer related the languages are), but it’s also confusing enough to cause occasional non-understandings or – which might be worse if you’re the blogger who wrote the text – misunderstandings.
If you are a blog author and you prefer your blog not to be translated, Google says you can use the following directive in your HTML – however, I am not sure whether Google checks this for Google Reader, or if there’s any way to specifically disallow a feed from being translated (I asked Google and will update if I know more):
""
Reported by Google Blogoscoped.
Here is the Google's official announcement about the Google Reader.
The Reader team is happy to announce that another 20% project has come to fruition: automatic translation in Reader! Post by 20% volunteer and glottology expert, Brett Bavar.
Believe it or not, the web truly is world-wide. That means there is a lot of interesting content out there in languages other than your own. You might have missed out on this content in the past, but now, with automatic translation in Reader, you don't have to miss a thing!
Next time you find an interesting feed in another language, just subscribe to it as normal in Reader. When you view the feed in Reader, check off "Translate into my language" in the feed settings, and (voila!) the feed will be immediately translated for you. Also, this setting will be saved so you can always view this feed in your own language.
Many thanks go out to the awesome engineers on the Google Translate team, who have provided the technology to make this possible. As they continue to make their translation systems better, you will get to reap the benefits automatically.
Have fun discovering all the great content out there on the truly world-wide web!
