Google Translate Question

Google translate is invaluable in any situation in which you don't speak the language. Here are a few tips:

• Download on your Android phone. Unless you take your iPad with you when you travel and it is easily accessible, you will likely use the Android phone more often.
• If you will not have access to cell service or that service is expensive for you to use while traveling, you can use Google Translate offline (e.g. without an internet connection). While you are attached to a wi-fi network, open the Google Translate App on your device, select that languages you want to translate to and from and top the download icon next to the language you want to use offline. Confirm the download and then it will be ready to use if you don't have internet connection. Note camera translation may require an internet connection.
• Google translate has several options: you can type in the text in your native language and then the translation will come up in the translated language. You can speak into Google translate and it will be translated. In either option, you opt to read yourself, show it to the person who speaks that language or play the audio of the translation. Google translate also has a camera option in which you take a photo of the words and it will translate.

Hope this helps.

There is also a camera button in the lower right corner. If you push that, your camera open and you can point it at a sign, menu, etc. Then push the shutter button and Google will translate the sign. Same thing if you have a Google search bar on your phone. There is a camera button that will also translate for you. That same camera on the search bar will also help you if you see something and wonder what it is. Point at something and press the button and it will tell you what you're looking at. My wife uses it quite a bit when she sees some flowers in a garden she likes. She'll point the camera at the flower and Google..usually.. comes up with the answer.

Practice it at home. I use it daily, especially when I am trip planning, like now. Many of the Romanian websites I have visiting are in Romanian only. I can use Google Translate to translate the whole webpage or highlight snippets of text and translate those. That will get you used to working with it.

You can do the same thing with your phone. Find a recording of a foreign language on TV or your iPad, then pull up Google Translate on your phone, start playing the recording and tap "Conversation" on the GT app. It will then translate that conversation for you. Or you can type in sentences and words, and it will translate it for you. But start doing it now so that you will be proficient when you go on your trip.

I had an interesting experience with Google Translate in Germany, when I was trying to talk to a bus driver who was Italian. His German was limited. I speak German, but mine is limited as well. He was trying to tell me something (in Italian) that I couldn't understand. And I was trying to tell him that I knew the bus wasn’t ready to leave and I just wanted to wait there. But he didn’t understand. So he started using Google Translate. But the problem was he was using it to translate his Italian into German (not very successfully, I might add). He evidently did not realize I was American.

I finally managed to get my German through to him so that he understood what I was asking. He had a lightning bolt moment, said yes, and I got on. It was quite the debacle!

All the above is true with the Microsoft "Translator" app, if you'd like to reduce your G 0og le footprint. It works great for me.

I've mostly used the online version for translating written documents, so for that its more useful to have a keyboard to type in the words. It will get remarkably complete even when it has to guess the words, and you don't have the proper symbols or letters on your American keyboard.

There are lots of useful Google Translate App tutorial videos on YouTube. Check them out.

Google translate is good, but I wanted to also suggest DeepL which I think does a better job at translation. It's another app you can download, and it also has that camera functionality for Japanese. You just point your camera at the text and it starts reading it- you don't even need to take a picture. You should be able to get it on your phone and your iPad.

To be honest, you might not even need it. We went to Japan in 2015 and no one in our group knew any Japanese beyond "hello" and "thank you" and we managed fine. At tourist sites and popular restaurants enough people speak English that you can get by. Of course, it's still a good idea to have an app as a back-up. Good luck with your trip!

I thank you everyone. Good information

I am going to hang on to it.

I live in senior housing and one of the social workers who puts on progrms here was using Google Translate with an Iranian resident today and she told me that she will show me how.