Google Translate App can now decipher 27 languages around the world. The translation service's real-time translation feature, introduced early this year, can instantly interpret signs in foreign languages to the user's native language. This works by having the user point out his camera on a particular sign while on the app. Then it pretty much works like the Google Translate website, wherein the user can choose what language to translate the sign to.
For example, the Spanish 'Arriba' can be found in a sign. A traveler can use his phone to access the app and focus his camera to the sign. He can then choose the language to translate it to (which can be found on top of the screen) and see the word in the sign translated. The feature does not even require internet connection to work, so it is an ideal app for those who are travelling.
The translator has its limits, of course. According to an article about it published in Fast Company, Google can only translate from English to Thai and Hindi and not the other way around. The characters for the languages are too complicated for Google Translate.The feature used to only convert to and from German, French, Russian, Portuguese and Italian.
On its official blog post, Google has announced that, "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."
The company has established a Translate Community, where budding linguists can offer correct translations for different words and languages to better Google's apps and services. The company has claimed to pitch about 100 million words already because of the community.
The updates will be rolling out in a few days, to both android and iOS. The technology is derived from translation app, Word Lens.
