Google Chat-Bots for Translation

I use the Google chat-bots for quick translations. Here's an illustration from a note to a friend:

For whatever reason, I looked at the story you gave me, saw "laberintos," and thought, "Shouldn't that be 'labArintos'?"

So I popped up a chat window in gmail, invited < en2es@bot.talk.google.com> to chat, and typed in "labyrinth." It responded,
"Laberinto."

I said, "thank you," to which it replied "Gracias." :-)

Now that Google has group chat, you can invite a pair of simultaneous translators to join, and have chats with people you don't even share a language with. Mostly, though, I use them for quick translation: it's easier than going to a website.

Update: I just looked, and Google has added many more translation-bots.