Earlier this year, Google’s popular Google Translate project added “Conversation Mode,” an experimental new feature that translates spoken speech for Android users.
Today on the Google Blog , the company announced an expansion to the app, allowing for more functionality and the translation of several other languages to augment Google Translate for Android. Conversation Mode for Google Translate on Android originally was launched with English to Spanish and vice versa, and today’s update adds fourteen language including Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian and Turkish.
Using Conversation Mode entails speaking into the phone’s audio input- the app will parse the input and play the translation aloud. If you’re in a conversation with a person speaking a different language, the app can “listen” to every exchange from the other party and translate it. Google notes that the function isn’t perfect yet- regional accents and background noise will clearly influence the results. But you can manually edit the input before submitting it to be translated to eliminate any obvious errors- which might prove embarrassing if you don’t catch them. Google explains:
We’ve also added some other features to make it easier to speak and read as you translate. For example, if you wanted to say “Where is the train?” but Google Translate recognizes your speech as “Where is the rain?”, you can now correct the text before you translate it. You can also add unrecognized words to your personal dictionary.
Translation results can be zoomed to share and viewed in full-screen mode- the app has also been enhanced for viewing on Android tablet screens. According to Google, the complete service encompasses dozens of languages already and work is being done to add more languages to Google Translate.
