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The Web is supposed to make the world smaller, but it sometimes doesn't feel that way when you're staring at a page written in a language you don't speak. However, a new generation of free, automatic translation tools can help break down the communications barrier.

Translations created entirely by computer are far from perfect. They're often not even grammatically correct. But you can usually figure out the sense of the text, and that's a lot better than staring at an unreadable alphabet.

Google Translate currently handles the greatest number of languages, supporting more than 60, including Indonesian, English, Chinese and Arabic.

Found a Web page in a language you can't read? Go to translate.google.com and enter the URL. Within seconds you'll be looking at a machine-translated version.

It's also possible to translate text that is typed or pasted in, from single words to entire documents.

Applied to a recent Indonesian-language story from Kompas.com, Google Translate produced the sentence: "Despite claims was used to seeing such behavior, Salman could not help confessing very worried, especially when Luna and the child was holding it pressed up to the escalator stairs."

Asking Google to translate "Luna was watching the film with Ariel’s daughter from a previous marriage, Alleia, and his father" from English into Indonesian results in: "Luna sedang menonton film dengan Ariel putri dari pernikahan sebelumnya, Alleia, dan ayahnya."

The grammar is awkward and "Ariel's daughter" is translated as "Ariel putri," which means "the daughter named Ariel," instead of the correct "putri Ariel."

But computer translation is instant, free and doesn't require asking a bilingual friend to help you surf the Web. It's also popular among Jakarta Globe readers who responded to our question on Facebook.

"I use it for supporting my Russian communication activities, like chat etc," Mochamad Fachri said.

"I use it for translating Chinese language to Indonesian, or English," said Vinish Ed, who frequents Chinese music sharing sites.

Uray Camila uses Google Translate to help with her English assignments.

"It's not too accurate but quite convenient," she said.

Google is not the only free translation service on the Web, nor is it the first. The original was Babelfish (babelfish.yahoo.com), which was released in 1997 and is now owned by Yahoo. Microsoft also offers the Bing Translator service at www.microsofttranslator.com, which works very similarly to Google Translate and seems to produce a similar quality of results. Bing Translator speaks about 20 different languages, not including Indonesian.

However, Google Translate seems to integrate the most seamlessly into day-to-day Web use.

Users who install the Google Toolbar on their computers get a "Translate" button that instantly detects the language of the current page and converts it into the user's chosen tongue. It can even be set to translate pages whenever a foreign language is detected.

Google also offers a translated search feature for finding web pages in a different language. Search terms in the user's language are automatically translated to the selected search language and matching pages are translated back to the user's language.

It is also possible to translate instant messenger and Twitter conversations.

Microsoft runs a "bot" called TBot that provides translations for users of Windows Messenger, as explained on its home page: "If you would like me to translate during your IM conversations, simply add me to your contacts: mtbot@hotmail.com, and invite me whenever you need translation help." TBot uses Bing Translator, which means it doesn't know Indonesian.

Google has a long list of similar bots for its GChat service, named after the languages they speak. They do not presently offer bots that "speak" Indonesian.

The best current solution for Bahasa Indonesia speakers who like to chat is to download Google's IM Translate gadget, which is a plug-in for the Google Desktop application.

For Twitter users, the popular Tweetdeck application already includes a translation feature. It can be accessed by clicking on the "gear" icon that appears in the lower right when the mouse is over the profile picture to the left of any tweet and selecting "Tweet" and then "Translate" from the menu that appears.

While Tweetdeck can translate one message at a time, Twieee.com is a web-based interface that shows every single tweet in both the original and translated languages.

Users who want to send tweets in a non-native language can try Tweetrans.com.