1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving, at a viewing application executing at a computing device, a selection by a user of a single word in a document in a source language, the document being displayed in the viewing application, wherein the viewing application is not configured to perform language translation; in response to receiving the selection of the single word, obtaining, by an operating system executing at the computing device, contextual information from at least a portion of a full screen capture of the document, the portion of the full screen capture being associated with the single word and the contextual information being indicative of a context of the selected word as it is used in the document; providing, from the operating system and to the a different translation application, the selected word and its contextual information, wherein receipt of the selected word and its contextual information causes the translation application to obtain and output potential translated words to the operating system; providing, from the operating system to the viewing application, the potential translated words, each potential translated word being a potential translation of the selected word to a different target language that is preferred by the user; and displaying, by the viewing application, the potential translated words.