Google Translate had implemented its first real-time translation tool in January. Now it has language support for 27 languages.

The translation tool is used via the smartphone’s camera and it immediately transcribes a sign from a language to your own, when you point the camera at the text message.

The improved translation tool supported languages ranging from Catalan, Ukrainian, Slovak, Indonesian etc. The application was initially offering translation support between English and Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Russian.

The application works reciprocally, whereas Non-English speakers can translate signs, letters and words into their native languages.

There is an exception regarding Hindi and Thai though, as Google can exclusively convert English to the two languages – and not the other way around – due to the complexity of their characters.

So, you can now translate to and from English and Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, Hungarian, Indonesian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian. You can also do one-way translations from English to Hindi and Thai.

Evidently, the app is ideal for travelers, as it functions in the absence of a data or Internet connection for mobile phones. Thus, the app spares you the time of always traveling with a dictionary or a travel guide-booklet, whereas menus, bills, directions can be translated immediately to your native language.

As a matter of fact, the instant translation ability comes from the Word Lens app, which Google acquired last year, by purchasing the company behind it, Quest Visual.

According to Barak Turovsky, product lead for Google Translate – just 20 percent of the planet speaks English, and this minority needs some entrepreneurial assistance. Google’s advance is remarkable.

Turovsky acknowledged the need of people to translate pieces of text easier and thus he was able to help them.

“Today, we’re updating the Google Translate app again, expanding instant visual translation to 20 more languages, and making real-time voice translations a lot faster and smoother so even more people can experience the world in their language.”, he said.

The app, available for iPhone and Android, does not require an Internet connection, users being prompted instead to download the language packages to their copy of the application.

“In many emerging markets, slow mobile networks can make it challenging to access many online tools,” said Turovsky.

He continued by saying –

“In addition to instant visual translation, we’ve also improved our voice conversation mode so it’s even faster and more natural on slow networks.”

Photo Credits khcn.cinet.vn