If you change the 'google_translate_element' to 'Form' in the function, it will create a drop down list at the bottom of the page [basically at the end of the form on the page].

It's not the most elegant solution, but it does work if you do that and select a language.

We've done this for the Bellevue School District site at http://www.bsd405.org/.

We created a control that can be added to the skin controls. You need to pass your URL as the "u" parameter of the query string on the Google request. As an example here is the ascx code for this control:

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Translate.ascx.cs" Inherits="controls_Translate" %>
<TABLE id="Table1" cellPadding="1" border="0">
    <TR>
        <TD>
            <asp:HyperLink id="HyperLink1" runat="server">
            <asp:Image ID="Image1" Runat="server" ImageUrl="~/images/flags/de-DE.gif" AlternateText="Translate to German"></asp:Image>
            </asp:HyperLink>
        </TD>
        <TD>
            <asp:HyperLink id="Hyperlink2" runat="server">
            <asp:Image ID="Image2" Runat="server" ImageUrl="~/images/flags/fr-FR.gif" AlternateText="Translate to French"></asp:Image>
            </asp:HyperLink>
        </TD>
        <TD>
            <asp:HyperLink id="Hyperlink3" runat="server">
            <asp:Image ID="Image3" Runat="server" ImageUrl="~/images/flags/it-IT.gif" AlternateText="Translate to Italian"></asp:Image>
            </asp:HyperLink>
        </TD>
        <TD>
            <asp:HyperLink id="Hyperlink4" runat="server">
            <asp:Image ID="Image4" Runat="server" ImageUrl="~/images/flags/es-ES.gif" AlternateText="Translate to Spanish"></asp:Image>
            </asp:HyperLink>
        </TD>
    </TR>
</TABLE>

And then on the Page_Load of the code behind we build out the hyperlinks: 

public partial class controls_Translate : System.Web.UI.UserControl
{
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        string Url = Server.UrlEncode(Request.Url.AbsoluteUri);
        string TranslatePrefix = "http://translate.google.com/translate?u=" + Url + "&langpair=";

        HyperLink1.NavigateUrl = TranslatePrefix + "en%7Cde&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8";
        Hyperlink2.NavigateUrl = TranslatePrefix + "en%7Cfr&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8";
        Hyperlink3.NavigateUrl = TranslatePrefix + "en%7Cit&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8";
        Hyperlink4.NavigateUrl = TranslatePrefix + "en%7Ces&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8";
    }
}

Hope that helps!
Eric