Saturday Suite Tip: Speaking another language

Need to add a macron? Speak and write in a language other than English? Want to translate your document? Take a look, at the language features within Google Suite

Language Settings

Within a Google Suite account, it is possible to change your default language.  To change your settings go to myaccount.google.com and switch to your preferred language.

While there are many languages available not all are there yet.  Languages are being updated all the time so do send feedback to Google about requiring your language and make sure you check back regularly.  

Adding Macrons

If you're not able to have your own language as a default you can still add things like macrons fairly easily in most Google Tools.  One option is to use special characters just like you would in other word processing programs.  Basically click the Insert menu then special characters, draw your character and it will be inserted wherever your cursor is located.  

Another way of adding macrons is to use an add on for Google Docs (currently not working in other suite tools but they're getting there) called Easy Accents.  This gives you the option to easily click a vowel with a macron and have it inserted into your doc.  

Translate your document

To translate a document use the translate feature.  Open the tools menu and click 'translate document' from here you can select a language to translate in to.   It's not perfect but would be a good discussion to have within a language classroom - what might be a better way to translate this sentence?