The text translation application Google Translate received today a rather important and, in a certain way, revolutionary update, becoming a real foreign language interpreter that works automatically. Google Translate can now not only show the translation of texts on billboards, magazines or signs on the mobile screen as if they were written in our language, but it can also become an interpreter of words that translates, in real time, what is said between two people who speak different languages.
The new version of Google Translate, available as an app on the iPhone and on all Android smartphones, has been integrated with the instant word translation tool Word Lens and with an automatic voice interpreter system .
Word Lens was an independent application, then purchased by Google and of which I had already spoken, which allowed to translate written with the camera in real time.
The magic of Word Lens lies in its augmented reality technology that allows you to instantly transform words written in foreign languages, into another language of your choice .
So without having to press buttons, you just need to frame the writing with the camera to see it translated.
So if you travel to a foreign country, you can immediately translate the written text into signs, notices, restaurant menus, tickets and more.
From now on, this feature is also included in Google Translate where you just need to touch the camera symbol and frame a text to read it in a language of your choice.
For now, the Word Lens feature in Google Translate only supports bidirectional translation in English, from or to Italian, French, Spanish, Russian, German and Portuguese.
This means that if you frame a text in English it can be seen in Italian on the smartphone screen or, if you find a text written in Russian or German, it can be displayed in English.
The Word Lens function, which works well when the writings are well defined and are not long sentences, also works without an internet connection.
The second new Google Translate feature is another magic: the voice interpreter .
For example, if you have to speak with a person who does not speak Italian, but another language among all those supported, to understand it without misunderstanding, you can pull out your smartphone, open Google translator, select the other person's language, touch microphone icon and speak.
The application will say what we said acting as an interpreter, in the other language.
The other person will then be able to speak and the translator will say what he said in Italian.
In this way the conversation will be smooth and easy, as if we had an interpreter by our side.
After selecting the two spoken languages Google Translate can automatically detect them, so there is no need to press keys on the screen and just keep the phone among the people who are chatting.
Again the translator works well for shorter sentences and obviously confuses the words if you speak too fast.
In order for the voice interpreter to work, however, the phone must be connected to the internet.
Overall, even if the automatic translations are not yet perfect, one cannot fail to be impressed by the Google translator who truly becomes a precious and unique travel companion.
With Google Translate and Skype Translator (voice interpreter for Skype conversations) language barriers really seem like a problem of the past.
The new Google Translate app can be installed for free by waiting for the automatic update or by downloading it from the Google Play stores for Android devices (you can download the Google Translate apk even without the store) and iTunes for iPhone .
