What I don't understand is, why doesn't the "never translate pages in language X" option solve you problem?
My own experience is that I often read pages in a couple of languages which I understand well (and don't want auto-translated, so I put those languages on the don't-translate list) and occasionally come across a page that seems interesting in a language what I don't understand (and then the offer to translate is helpful).
People are often reluctant to execute UI to permanently remember choices because they want to preserve the option to choose in the future.
For example, say I have a workable command of French, but want the ability to translate French in the future in case I don't understand a particular paragraph. So I put up with the annoying dialog over and over because I'm afraid to not have it when I want it.
Always/never UI is almost always a design failure IMO.
Another example is the intent chooser in Android. I put up with the dialog that asks whether I want to use Gallery or G+ photos because I fear not being able to choose in the future when I have some other viewer I want to use, or when there is some particular feature of G+ that I learn about and want to use.
In many cases this isn't rational if you think it through. There is probably some UI to reset the intent option somewhere, and finding it then is probably less time overall than dealing with this dialog over and over. But you don't think that through in the moment, you get slightly frustrated, press "not now" again, and get on with whatever you were trying to do.
You can always re-enable the translation popup through the page's context menu. It has an entry for "Translate to English" (or whatever your preferred language is) right there.
The problem is that a "permanent" decision has to be made before the user has the option to discover how to make it less permanent.
When it comes to UI issues, the existence of a solution with enough poking around is rarely a solution at all. The problem is that the UI is creating a conflict for the user at the beginning; being able to resolve a conflict is far worse than never creating the conflict at all.
Because I use the translate feature all the time! I don't want it gone!
Here's a simple example for you:
Bob lives in Norway, but doesn't know perfect Norwegian.
He likes that google chrome/translate helps him read Norwegian webpages.
Bob is always losing focus on his cursor because of the translate feature, it's even bothering him on websites in his native language due to all of the region based advertising.
You're telling Bob that he should disable the option to translate Norwegian web pages, even though he reads them daily, and doesn't speak the language.
Now do you see the problem?
To be perfectly clear, this was not a problem when the translate option showed at the top of the page, but is a problem with the new "pop-up" style they are using which steals focus from the user.
Why wouldn't he tick the always translate this language? I feel like it's very uncommon that someone would like a language translated half of the time.
I'm Dutch myself, so I have English and Dutch never translated. And everytime I'm on a webpage with another language I like that I can ask Google to translate it for me and remember it for that language.
If it translate all the time, then you never get to read the original language and never get better at it. Many people (including me) intentionally browse in foreign language to exercise it while reading news and blogs. If the text gets too difficult I may need help, otherwise I want to keep it as it is.
Plus automatically translated texts are often pain to read. The translation is good enough to help you decipher meaning, but not good enough to make a real text.
I can myself relate to the use case and understand why the not-so-discoverable context menu isn't a solution. We are making changes to the UX that I hope will provide a better solution (see my other comment)
As a non-Dane living in Denmark, I prefer pages to start out in Danish, and then to be able to click "translate" if I'm not able to successfully read it. I don't want to never translate Danish, but I also don't want it to translate right up front before I try to read it. Starting out in Danish and then having a little icon where I can click on a case-by-case basis to translate it is exactly the functionality I want, which is how it has worked so far.
Totally agree. If Chrome was used by a small group of people it wouldn't matter, but for a browser with world domination ambitions it's just wrong to miss a big user base. Arond 10% of the world population are immigrants and a bigger group are language learners. Chrome annoys both.
My own experience is that I often read pages in a couple of languages which I understand well (and don't want auto-translated, so I put those languages on the don't-translate list) and occasionally come across a page that seems interesting in a language what I don't understand (and then the offer to translate is helpful).