This Cool Interactive Map Can Translate English Into More Than 30 European Languages

UK Data Explorer/screenshot

If you're interested in languages, you're going to dig this nifty interactive map built by James Trimble of UK Data Explorer, which we spotted on reddit.

His European word translator, which he writes was inspired by the /r/etymology maps subreddit, can translate words from English into every prominent language in Europe.

It's pretty cool to see how some words can be very similar across countries, while being dramatically different in others. Take one example, banana, which is how it's spelled in the United Kingdom (and the U.S. of course). Right across the water in France it's banane, and in the Czech Republic it has a slight accent with banán. But then go further to Turkey and it's completely different: muz.

Trimble, a postgrad computer science student at Glasgow University, put the tool together using Google Translate and Javascript.

Try it out yourself >