Search giant Google typically updates their apps on Wednesdays and already we’re starting to see signs of those updates. Google has just announced that they’re sending out a pretty big update to the Google Translate application today, and in it users will get access to the expanded library of supported languages which Translate is able to immediately translate printed text from. Prior to today’s update the app only had printed text translation support for seven different languages which was a good start, but now users will have even more languages at their disposal with this feature. The best part about this functionality too is that Google makes it so translations happen without having to be connected to the internet, so you can still see things happen in front of your eyes even when there’s no network connection around.
In addition to the original seven languages (English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish) which could be instantly translated visually, Google will be adding 20 more languages to that compatible list. After users update the app, they’ll be able to see instant visual translations for Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, Hungarian, Indonesian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Swedish, Turkish, and Ukrainian. With these 25 supported languages, users can do two-way instant visual translations. The update also allows for one way translations instant visual translations from English to Hindi, and English to Thai making up the total of 27 languages in all. In addition to this, users can also take a photo of the text they’re trying to get visual translations for as Google Translate’s camera mode supports 37 total languages.
Visual translations of printed text is not the only thing being updated, and for those who use the voice conversation mode Google is throwing in some improvements here. Conversation mode will now allow real-time translation of conversations across 32 different languages, and Google states that the improvements were made to make this function feel more natural and faster on slower networks, so if you don’t live in a speedy data network area things should still feel snappy and responsive. The update begins rolling out today but could take the next week or two before it finishes rolling out to everyone.