The last 24 hours have seen a flurry of updates from Google on their Android apps. Google Photos, Google Play Music, Google Chrome and Google+ have all been updated in the last 24 hours and the latest to be added to that list is Google Translate. For those who are not familiar with the app, Google Translate allows you to convert spoken or written text from one language to another. It supports over 90 languages and is the closest thing to the Star Trek Universal Translator available today. Simply speak to your phone in your native tongue and it is translated to your audience’s tongue and scarily accurate. Or if you see a sign in one language but need it in your native language, point your camera at it and it will magically appear in your native language on your phone’s screen.
Now Google has smoothed out 40 of those conversations in this update to Google Translate while also improving the accessibility features of the app. The update is version 4.0.0.RC08.99220384 for those keeping score at home and it is available for free now in the Google Play Store.
Google Translate for Android – Free – Download Now
The primary focus of this update to Google Translate has been smoothing out the conversations in 40 different languages but also have added a lot of the instant text translation you can do with your phone’s camera. Google has been working on the algorithms behind the app for some time and it appears that work is paying off now. To use the the translator, open up the app and press the microphone button. After you are done, your words will be translated into the selected language and spoken as well as put on the screen of your phone for reading.
Google Translate for Android
The update also brings 20 new languages that you can instantly translate with your Android phone’s camera. To and From English you can now translate:
- Bulgarian
- Catalan
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- Filipino
- Finnish
- Hungarian
- Indonesian
- Lithuanian
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Romanian
- Slovak
- Swedish
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
Additionally, from English, you can translate to Hindi and Thai with this update to Google Translate.
