I can recite enough high-school Spanish to find a bathroom or order a drink in Barcelona. But carrying on a friendly conversation is beyond my limits.
Thankfully, Google Assistant can help.
“Travelers already turn to the Assistant for help researching and checking into flights, finding local restaurant recommendations, and more,” Lilian Rincon, senior director of product management for Google Assistant, wrote in a blog post.
Now, they can use the real-time “interpreter mode” translation feature—introduced early this year—to better communicate with someone speaking a foreign language.
Available on Assistant-enabled Android or iOS devices, users can simply say “Hey Google, be my German translator,” or “Hey Google, help me speak Japanese,” and you’ll see and hear the translated chat.
Inquire in English, for example, whether a dish contains peanuts, and the app automatically interprets your question into the chosen language. Tap the speaker icon to let the phone talk for you.
After each transcription, Google Assistant may suggest Smart Replies for a quick response without speaking—”which can make your conversations faster and even more seamless,” according to Rincon.
Interpreter mode helps users translate across 44 languages.
“Whether you’re heading on a trip this holiday season, gearing up for international travel in the new year, or simply want to communicate with family members who speak another language,” Rincon said, “interpreter mode is here to remove language barriers no matter where you are.”
Google Maps last month launched a similar translation feature that lets your phone do the speaking.
Gone are the days of anxiously trying to talk to a taxi driver in Spanglish or accidentally offending a local when asking for directions in broken Italian: World travelers can now tap the speaker button next to a place name or address and Google Maps will say it out loud.
Need to know more about your destination? Want to thank the Good Samaritan? Hoping to score with a cute passerby? Click “Get more translations” to open the Google Translate app (if you have it installed).
The text-to-speech technology automatically detects what language your phone is using, to determine which places you might need help translating.
If you phone is set to English, for instance, and you’re looking at a place of interest in Tokyo, the speaker icon will appear next to the location’s name and address.
There does not appear to be a way to turn off certain languages users may already know.
More on Geek.com:
- Panasonic Invents Multi-Lingual Megaphone Translator
- Scientists Translate Brian Signals Into Synthetic Speech
- Google Translate Adds More Languages to Wikipedia Article Editing
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