You Can Now Translate Over 100 Languages Via Google Translate's Camera

New updates for Google Translate camera

The instant camera of Google Translate can now easily make the translation of street signs in a foreign language. You just have to aim your phone camera to translate something - even if English is not your mother tongue. On July 10, the search giant has released many new updates for their translation tool. Those updates include the ability to use the instant camera to do the translation between over 100 languages that Google Translate supports. Moreover, English is no longer required to be in pairs of translating languages. That means users can now translate directly from Japanese to Bengali, or Polish to Catalan...

So the instant camera support 60 new languages including Hindi, Malay, Arabic, Vietnamese, and Thai. That means there are a total of 88 languages that you can translate via your camera lens. With these languages as sources, you could translate them to over 100 output languages. Other than the camera, you could use handwritten, images, voice and typed text as input for Google Translate as well. However, not all languages support all those features.

Neural Machine Translations

Google is also combining NMT (neural machine translations ) with their Translate's instant camera. In fact, the search giant already applied this technology in Google's Lens. NMT is believed to help reduce the errors in translation by 55-85% in some certain pairs of languages. Besides, NMT can work without or with WiFi, but it would be more effective when users use an internet connection.

There will be also an autodetect feature that would be a great help for backpackers. In the new version of the app, just choose "Detect language" as the source, then the camera will auto-translate the sign's text into the target language.

The new instant camera of Google Translate has been available to 1% of users since July 10, and all other users can experience this feature in the later weeks.