Google Assistant now comes with a Real-Time translator in 27 languages
Google Assistant’s new
interpreter mode can translate conversations — but it’s not magic
·
Real
Time Translator detects what language you’re speaking (if it’s one of the 27
languages it supports).
·
There
are some kinks: it won’t work if more than one person speaks.
Supports
27 languages at launch
By
Google
Assistant will soon be able to act as your real-life translator in 27 different
languages. Google announced today that the voice assistant is getting a new “interpreter
mode” that can translate in real time so you can hold conversations with
someone who doesn’t share the same tongue. It works, but it’s not magic.
You’ll be
able to say things like, “Hey, Google, help me speak French,” or “Hey, Google,
be my French interpreter,” and Google Assistant will show text across a smart
display that translates your words as you speak. Afterward, it will open the
microphone for the second person to be able to speak in their language and
words will be translated across the screen at the same time. Google Assistant
also plays back the words in your native tongue.
FAR FROM GOOGLE’S FIRST ATTEMPT AT REAL-TIME TRANSLATION, BUT IT
COULD POTENTIALLY BE A BIG IMPROVEMENT ON PAST TRIES
You don’t
have to tell Google what language you’re speaking, as it will be able to tell,
so long as it’s one of the languages supported. But if two people talk over
each other, Google won’t understand.
We tried
out the interpreter mode during CES by speaking Mandarin. While it’s a pretty
big improvement from not being able to understand a foreign language, there are
still some kinks that need to be worked out. It’s a little unnatural in
practice: you need to speak, wait for the translation to process, and repeat
until your conversation is over. There’s even a chance that Google will simply
miss some of your sentences. That process can be tiring for longer conversations.
Google
Assistant has had bilingual capabilities since an update appeared in August, and that’s
the same technology behind the new interpreter mode. This is far from Google’s
first attempt at real-time translation — in addition to the Google Assistant’s
multilingual feature, Google also incorporated a translation feature in the Pixel Buds in November 2017, which
eventually began making its way to all headphones that support Google Assistant last
October. While the feature works, the translation can sometimes be rudimentary
and imperfect.
The new
interpreter mode still has time to get better, though. The mode will first
arrive on the Google Home Hub and is being piloted at hotel concierge desks
like the one we visited on Monday. It should roll out on Google Home devices
and third-party smart displays from Lenovo, LG, JBL, and others over the next
few months.
Here’s a full
list of languages supported:
- Arabic
- Chinese
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- Finnish
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hindi
- Hungarian
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Romanian
- Russian
- Slovak
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Thai
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
- Vietnamese
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