If you’re heading on vacation, one of the things you should do before you go is make sure you have a good translation app installed on your phone. Especially if you’re going to a country where the locals don’t have very good English skills. That was me a month ago as I was preparing to spend two weeks in a country called Japan. 87th place (out of 113) In English proficiency.
I’m not very good at learning new languages, especially ones that are far from English. So by the time I left, I had managed to learn at least some Japanese to avoid coming off as a rude, ignorant gaijin. Thankfully, Google Translate has been able to fill that void, and while it’s still imperfect, I’ve come to appreciate that Google Translate’s Japanese translation skills have come a long way in recent years.
Google Translate has been invaluable, especially when it comes to written Japanese, but I found myself a little underwhelmed by the way the app translated one sentence or phrase at a time. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized that Google Translate had a lot of features that I had completely missed.
conversation mode
One thing I didn’t like about using Google Translate abroad was that you had to pass phones between participants and adjust on-screen settings to help Google know the language you were translating into. There will be more to do. If I had paid attention to the other buttons on the screen, I would have seen the conversation mode button. This problem seems to be resolved now.
In my defense, whenever I needed to translate real-world conversations, I had something else in mind. But there’s no excuse for such inattention, especially when the buttons are clearly labeled. It’s quite embarrassing, really, you should be careful not to make the same mistake I did.
Conversation mode is not completely seamless, but it facilitates two-way conversations. Set your language and press the conversation mode button. Once each participant has finished speaking, all can be toggled with the press of a button. Even better, Google Translate keeps a record of the entire conversation for that session, so you always have the option to review older parts of the conversation if you need to.
Face-to-face mode
If you’ve ever seen the translation apps on the best flip phones, you’ll know that they take advantage of the dual-screen design in a very smart way. Each participant will see their own screen with the words spoken translated into their native language. That means no need to hand over the phone or get confused about who is saying what.
Samsung has hyped the introduction of a similar feature on the Galaxy S24 that splits the screen in two and vertically flips the text at the top of the screen. This is called interpreter mode, and it means each person holds the phone completely still and sees the translated conversation from their own perspective. It turns out that Google Translate can also do this using something called Face to Face mode.
It works exactly the same: once conversation mode opens, tap the Face to Face icon at the top of the screen. When it’s your turn to speak, just tap the microphone icon and Google Translate will fill in the gaps.
It may not be a necessary feature for convenience stores or small shops, but if long conversations are required, this can make the whole process much easier. Especially if you have a flat surface nearby, such as a table, on which you can rest your phone.
One feature I couldn’t live without
In the end, it didn’t really matter that I didn’t know about these two features, even though it would have made my life much easier. As a matter of fact, the English level in Japan’s big cities is higher than I was led to believe, and communication problems were less frequent. But there was one feature I simply couldn’t do without. It’s Google Lens.
Google Translate has had a camera translation feature for several years, but the initial development of this feature was a far cry from what Google Lens can manage today. Japanese Kanji is much more foreign (not to mention more complex) than the Roman alphabet I’m used to, so I had to use Lens’ translation tools every day.
Since I didn’t get out of the city much, many official signs had English translations (often in addition to Chinese and Korean). It’s very useful when using public transport, but once you leave the station or super touristy area, everything reverts to Japanese as you might imagine. Even something as simple as the TV remote was all written in Japanese, and the icons weren’t as familiar as one might expect.
While traveling, I had to translate menus, store signs, food labels, receipts, road signs, and more. Even if you don’t know a single letter of the local alphabet, the ability to translate everything at the touch of a button is almost magical.
Other useful Google Translate features
Offline translation: Tying translation ability to local 4G signal strength is not always ideal. Free Wi-Fi isn’t always available, especially if your carrier doesn’t offer free roaming. Google Translate’s offline language packs mean you can access certain languages even when you’re not connected to the internet.
Handwritten translation: While admittedly quite niche compared to others and not the kind of thing I need, Google Translate has a handwriting feature that works surprisingly well as long as you’re not trying to draw kanji with zero prior knowledge. experience.
The future of Google Translate
One thing we’re slowly starting to see is efforts to translate different languages on devices other than mobile phones. Translation app now available on Apple Watchthanks to watchOS 11, Samsung added AI-powered translation feature for certain Galaxy Buds — includes an interpreter mode version of Galaxy Buds3 and buds3 pro.
Despite releasing the latest Pixel Watch 3 and Pixel Buds Pro 2 within the past few months, Google hasn’t done any of that. Given that Gemini AI efforts are making big strides in 2024, you would have expected Google to add AI-powered features to as many places as possible. Given that translation is so convenient and already powered by AI, it would seem like the perfect choice.
Having more easy ways to translate between different languages can only be a good thing, especially if it means you don’t have to pull out your phone and load a dedicated app. I hope Google makes some sense and adds translation functionality to some of its non-phone devices. Well, you’d probably settle for the official version of Google Translate on Wear OS, even if it’s not as feature-rich as the phone app.
