Google Translate for Android conversation mode, which allows two people to speak in different languages and have their words translated in near real time, is now expanding beyond English and Spanish and is available in 14 languages. The new languages are: Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian and Turkish.
Google Translate conversation mode, which debuted in January, is still in alpha and is in the process of getting better as it gets fed more speech data. It allows a user to speak their language into the Google Translate app and have their words spoken out loud in another language. Users can trade turns speaking into the app and have translated word spoken and rendered in text. With the addition of a dozen new languages, it should greatly expand the number of people who use the tool. Conversation mode is one of those tools that really show off the power of the cloud on mobile devices.
The service is also getting some additional features that help facilitate conversations. Users will now be able to see if the app has incorrectly recognized spoken words and correct them before they’re translated. They can add unrecognized words to their own personal dictionary. And users can also pinch to zoom or tap on a magnifying glass to view translations in full screen mode. This is helpful if you just want to show someone translated text instead of using conversation mode. The Translate App can handle text translations of 63 languages.
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