Google Translate adds offline translations, conversation mode

Google has announced several updates to its Translate App, the software giant said.

Google has announced several updates to its Translate App. Starting today, users in Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu can experience offline translations and instant visual translation in their preferred language.

To activate, simply tap the mic to start speaking in a selected language, then tap the mic again, and the Google Translate app will automatically recognize which of the two languages are being spoken, letting you have a fluid conversation, the company said in a statement. With Google Translate, users can easily turn their phone into a powerful translation tool, whether for studies, business, travel or work.

Google Translate has also added support for conversation mode in regional languages including Bengali and Tamil.

This update also allows Indian users to use Google Translate offline. For offline access, though, a user must download the language pack of the language to be translated, or both languages, if a conversation has to be translated. This is done by selecting the language choice that appears after opening the Home page of the Translate app.

The other key feature of the new Translate app is the Word Lens feature, which allows online and offline translations of English text from the camera. Since the feature is powered by machine learning, this feature doesn’t require a language pack, and displays the translation as a screen overlay.

All features are already available in Hindi on the Google Translate app, and these features will be provided to the additional Indian languages on both Android and iOS. Google Translate has also added support for conversation mode in regional languages including Bengali and Tamil.