Tar Heel Reader

I'm very pleased to see an increasing number of books on Tar Heel Reader in languages other than English but it is disappointing to not be able to read them myself. I've discovered that you can read them pretty well using the mechanical translation service provided by Google Translate. Here's how to use it.

Find the URL for the book you want to read at Tar Heel Reader. The URL will be the text beginning with http://tarheelreader.org that appears in the address bar of your browser when you're on the first page of the book. Copy that text to the clipboard.

Now go to the Google Translate page and paste the link. Use the pulldown choosers to select the source and result language you want. Then click the Translate button.

You'll be taken to a translated version of the page. The Next and Previous page links are a bit messed up (I've got to work on that) but they work. You can click through the book reading each page as translated by Google.

Note, machine translation leaves a lot to be desired but you can usually figure out what the story is saying.