Google Assistant’s ‘Interpreter Mode’, which allows the software to translate conversations in real-time, finally started rolling out to smartphones and tablets after being rolled out on Google Home smart speakers and displays earlier this year. However, the tech giant is now also believed to be working on a similar functionality for its Google Translate app, enabling users to interact with folks who don’t speak their language.
Believed to have been originally spotted by renowned software reverse engineer, Jane Manchung Wong, the new feature is a real-time translation functionality that translates speeches without interruption to facilitate a conversation between two people who don’t speak each other’s language. Called ‘Continuous Translation‘, the feature is currently in the early stages of development, but will hopefully be released sooner rather than later.
Google Translate continues working on “Continuous Translation” / “Listen”, now with a prototype UI
previously spotted 150 days ago: https://t.co/nL6NpIOYiB pic.twitter.com/q7hEihZaLL
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) December 12, 2019
To get started, users need to select the all-new ‘Listen’ icon next to the Camera and Conversation icons in the G-Translate app. They’ll then be able to choose the target language from a drop-down menu, while the input language can be either selected manually or auto-detected by the software.
Google announced plans to bring the Conversation Mode to Android and Android Go phones at the ‘Google for India 2019’ event in New Delhi back in September after originally introducing it as the Interpreter Mode for Google Assistant on Google Home speakers earlier this year. It is an incredibly useful feature, especially for globetrotters and backpackers, as it allows folks who don’t speak each other’s language, to interact with each other.
The feature currently supports Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese, although that might change by the time it’s rolled out globally.
