Almost everyone has used Google Translator at least once with more or less efficient results, but here is a series of tricks to use the service at its best
Everyone at least once has used Google Translator. To find the right word for a foreign text at school, to send an email in an unfamiliar language or simply to translate phrases of an unknown language. If we are on vacation in a country where we don’t understand the language and where no one knows Italian, we can rely on Google Translate for some small information. In Europe we won’t have much trouble connecting to the Internet and activating the Mountain View Translator, given the possibility of using free roaming of our data in all the nations of the Union.
But what if we are in another continent where our tariff plan is not valid? Nothing simpler, Google Translator also works offline. Yes, you read that right, translations with the Google service are possible even without using the Net.
Here’s how to use Google Translate offline and a whole series of other tricks to use the Mountain View translator and have efficient translations.
Using Google Traduttore offline
A few weeks ago Google Translate became available offline in Italian. And compared to the past, Mountain View has worked hard to improve the functions of its translator even when used without a connection.
How? By changing the system of translations without Internet. In the past, Google Translate offline used a set of default phrases on a database to offer an initial translation to users. This meant that if we entered a very complex sentence, the service would return a translation with several errors. Now Google has implemented artificial intelligence and machine learning in the offline version of Google Translate, and the translations are quite reliable even for complex phrases or small texts, such as documents.
Moreover, each language takes up 35 to 45 MB of memory on the smartphone, a fairly small storage space when compared to the convenience of an offline translator.
Use Google Translate for instant translations of text and images
In the latest updates Google Translate has also added the ability to translate text highlighted with the camera. If, for example, we were in a gas station abroad and didn’t understand the meaning of a sign or information at the entrance to a place of interest, we could simply frame the text with our camera, after launching the Google Translate app, and then highlight the phrase we want to translate by underlining it with our finger on the screen. After a few moments, the service will return the translated phrase.
Using Google Translator as a voice interpreter
Google’s voice translation became famous in recent days when at the 2018 World Cup in Russia a journalist used this feature in the press room to ask a question to French player Antoine Griezmann.
This is a very convenient solution if we are abroad and want to have a short conversation with a person who does not speak our language. But how does it work?
Simple, we speak and the service translates for us. When the other person answers in their own language, Google Traduttore listens and translates for us.
Using Google Traduttore as a dictionary
If you set up translations from Italian to Italian Google Traduttore turns into a dictionary, giving you for each word the meaning, synonyms, antonyms and usage cases. A good tool if you write a lot for work or if you want to be sure of the meaning of a word you just wrote on an important text for work.
Use Google Traduttore to translate a handwritten text
With Google Translate you can enter the word or text to be translated freehand or using the mouse. To activate this mode just click on the pencil icon at the bottom left of the text entry box. If the icon does not appear, probably this feature is not supported in the selected language.