Anyone who travels frequently most likely encounters issues due to the language barrier that separates many countries from each other. While some languages are similar and you can “get by” with guessing what signage and other text reads, there are other languages such as Japanese that are impossible for English speaking people to even begin trying to deduce what they say. Google Translate has been around for awhile now and is a handy tool for sure. In the case of Japanese to English (and vice-versa) translations, you can take a picture of the Japanese text and the app will translate it into English for you.
Google has updated the Google translate app to allow for real-time text translations from Japanese to English and English to Japanese with an update to the Word Lens technology behind the app.
With Word Lens, you just need to fire up the Translate app, point your camera at the Japanese text, and the English translations will appear overlaid on your screen—even if you don’t have an Internet or data connection. It’s every savvy traveller’s dream!
Japanese rock band OKAMOTO’s has released a fun video called “Lagoon” which demonstrates just how well the real-time text translations from English to Japanese work using Google Translate.
As Google Translate is available for both Android and iOS users, there’s bound to be more than a few travellers taking advantage of the newly added feature. What do you think about the addition of real-time Japanese text translations to Google Translate? Let us know in the comments below or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”https://www.blog.google/topics/google-asia/lost-translation-no-more-word-lens-japanese/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Google[/button]
