Google has announced some improvements to their Google Translate app for both Android and iOS to make it even easier to communicate around the world. The changes include twenty new languages added to the instant visual translation function and revisions that speed up the conversational translation capabilities so it will work even on slow network connections.
The Google Translate app was already capable of providing visual translations for seven languages – English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. This is accomplished by pointing your device's camera at a sign or text in one of these languages and then letting the app provide a translation almost instantaneously. Now Google has added twenty more languages including Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, Hungarian, Indonesian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian. In addition to these languages which can be translated to or from English, Google provides one way translation from English to Hindi and Thai. To help showcase the visual translation capabilities, Google's team produced the video below set to “La Bamba”.
On top of the impressive visual translation capability the app offers, Google Translate is also capable of providing translation of the spoken word across 32 languages. One challenge to this is the need for an Internet connection which is sometimes unreliable, especially in emerging markets. The update Google is pushing out promises to make these translations easier to complete on these sketchy connections and they should sound more natural in the process.
The updated Google Translate is rolling out starting today, so watch for an update on your device. You can get Google Translate or check for the availability of the update for your account by using one of the download links below.
source: Google
