Google Translate got way smarter; the app now supports 20 more languages

Google Translate is even more useful now. Google now adds 20 new languages for its mobile translation application that reads text and converts it into another language of your choice. With the new additions, the company has expanded from mere 7 languages to 27 languages. The update is rolling out for both iOS and Android. According to the  Google blog, the new languages include Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, Hungarian, Indonesian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian.

Additional tweaks improve the speed at which voice translations are made, especially in area with poor 3G network. Google’s picture mode translation, which requires a snapshot of text, can operate in 37 languages. The report explains that to try out the new languages, users can read to the Google Translate app, set ‘English’ along with the language you would like to translate and click the camera button. Users will be prompted to download a small language pack worth 2MB for each. In conversation with TechCrunch, Julie Cattiau, Product Manager for Google Translate says, “Our mission is to help overcome language barriers. Whenever someone faces an obstacle due to encountering a second language, we want to be there to help solve the problem. Within that mission, our most important project is improving the quality of machine translation. But part of that is also the overall user experience, which is why we also invest in things like instant camera translation and multi-language conversation.”