^[1] Translating any piece of text is pretty easy these days thanks to free online translation services like Google Translate ^[2], Bing Translator ^[3] and BabelFish ^[4]. In fact some browsers like Opera have translation features build right into its interface. Unfortunately, most free translation tools require you to manually enter the source language. Correctly identifying the source language can often be the biggest hurdle.

LangID is a free service which can analyze any piece of text and identify its language. The best thing about LangID is that it works with almost anything. Besides copy+pasting the text snippet you can also upload files, paste links, request translation via twitter and even email.

LangID utilizes the Google Translate AJAX API and supports as many as 85 languages. It returns the current English name of the language, the ISO code and an icon representing the flag of one of the countries this language is spoken in. LangID is the most impressive language detection service around according to the quick test carried out by MakeUseof.com ^[5]. It managed to detect 18 out of 20 different languages thrown at it by MakeUseOf. Give LangID a try and let us know if you found it handy.