As of late July of this year, Google made it known that its instant visual translation feature had added 20 languages, and now supports a total of 27 languages. This adds even more power to their formidable neural machine network.
Google Translate App
Translation services are part of the Google Translate app, and it includes technology from Quest Visual, a company Google acquired in May of 2014. For some time, Google had been serving users of their app with the seven core languages, including English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and German. Over a period of time, with help from a few unlikely sources such as United Nations documents, Google helped to perfect this app using these seven languages.
This app can now process large loads of data, and do it very quickly. The real time voice translation part of the app has also seen some vast improvements. It is now available in 32 languages. The visual translate feature has also added new languages. Those added include Ukrainian, Turkish, Indonesian, Swedish, Slovak, Finnish, Dutch, Filipino, Czech, Romanian, Norwegian, Danish, and Croatian. Each of these languages can be translated to English, and from English, but not between them. Translations may also be done from English to Hindi, and Thai, but not the other way around. To use these language services, one will need to download a pack that is separate, with the files totaling just under 2 MB each.
This groundbreaking app has come a long way in short period of time. Just a few years ago, a computer could not even tell the difference between an image of a cat and a dog. Now with the power of neural networks, computers can now do this and more, even being able to differentiate between dog breeds.
Ongoing Improvements
Google is also doing more to improve its Translate app. Recently, Google debuted Translate Community, a place on the internet where people from around the world can put correct translations of their native language. While this platform has only been in existence for one year, it has proven to be very useful, with over 100 million words contributed up to this point in time.
So what does this mean for users? It means translations that once took days can be done in a fraction of time, and done very accurately, saving time, and in the process, saving users a great deal of money. This will make transactions across borders much easier, and open up a number of opportunities for those looking to do business in other countries.
Google has for a number of years been at the forefront of translation services. Now with this improvement, you can expect even more in the near future, as these apps now offer more to millions and millions of users around the world. Expect even more languages to be added in the near future, as Google expands even more on its translation services.
Start With Well Written Content
Of course any translation is only as good as the quality and accuracy of the original content. Avoid using ambiguous terminology and slang is one good way to help ensure that your translated message is on point.
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