Fans of Peter Quill’s translator implant from Guardians of the Galaxy or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s Babel fish rejoice! We’re one step closer to instant translation software right in our ears.
That’s because Google Translate has recently received a number of updates which are making us think that the future has arrived!
First is the news that Android phones and Google Assistant headphones now feature real-time Google Translate.
What this means is that you can select the language you’re speaking and the language you want to translate your words into, and the phone will do all the legwork for you — live and in real time!
We were sceptical, to say the least, but thought we’d put it to the test with a conversation between English-speaking Brent and Polish-speaking Nik.
Check out the results here:
Pretty impressive, right?
All you have to do to activate it is hold down the Assistant button and say “Help me interpret Polish”, or one of the other 40 languages that are supported.
Google Translate Supported Languages
| Afrikaans | Arabic | Armenian | Bengali |
| Catalan | Croatian | Czech | Danish |
| Dutch | English | Finnish | French |
| German | Greek | Hindi | Hungarian |
| Icelandic | Indonesian | Italian | Japanese |
| Khmer | Korean | Latvian | Mandarin |
| Nepali | Norwegian | Polish | Portuguese |
| Romanian | Russian | Serbian | Sinhala |
| Slovak | Spanish | Swahili | Swedish |
| Tamil | Thai | Turkish | Vietnamese |
What’s more, Google has now brought its visual translation capabilities up to 63 languages, allowing users to translate menus, billboards and product labels in real time by simply running the phone camera over them.
It’s the future we all dreamed about!
Things You Can Do on Holiday with Google Translate
Visit countries such as China, Malawi or The Gambia where less than 3% of people speak English.- Order off the menu without worrying your choice contains meat or something you’re allergic to.
- Actually know what the specials are at a restaurant.
- Get directions from a local.
- Take a tour from a non-English-speaking tour guide.
- Avoid tourist traps.
