The souped up Google translate is a lot of fun. I admit it. I used their English<-->English conversion tool just to make the translate voice talk and say silly things. After a while, my wife wasn’t amused.

Practically, there are a couple of nice features that were added, and the first one in particular should help IDNers. First, it translates as you type in, instantly. No more wait time.

Second, there is a “show romanization” link that will provide you with a phonetic representation of the translation so you can read it off instantly.

Lastly, there is the text-to-speech support for English translations. If you click the speaker icon, you’ll hear your translation.