Translators for travel

Google Translate app on my phone. Download the language you want and it works offline.

I have been to 83 foreign countries and never found a shortage of people that didn't speak English.

In a recent interview Rick Steves said he found translate apps only moderately useful for specific words and encouraged travelers to try and communicate with locals using the old face to face connection attempt that will often make you understood… eventually :) (the old days of pantomime ) - I think he was reminding us of the value of connecting with other rather than staring at our phones too much. Maybe a combo of both.

Thanks for your replies but I actually did want the translator where you could also just walk around with the earbuds on and actually hear what people are saying around you like in an open market. I just thought it would be an added sweet touch to enhance the travel experience

Unless you feel the need to walk around with earbuds in your ears all day. Just use one of the translators on your phone. The rest of world does the same thing. We had a pleasant conversation with a hotel employee in Turkey. He did not speak English and we didn't speak Turkish. We both used Google Translate.

For years, I used Microsoft Translate (for Android), it worked great, could accept audio, pictures, text and put out audio or text. Then a big new update changed it all to have ads and lots of unwanted AI stuff. So I now use Yandex Translate. Works great, does all that the MS one did, no ads. Works offline, just download the dictionaries you need once.

Thanks for your replies but I actually did want the translator where
you could also just walk around with the earbuds on and actually hear
what people are saying around you like in an open market. I just
thought it would be an added sweet touch to enhance the travel
experience

Wow! Like Star Trek? Like Uhura?

Real time translator whispering in your ear from Romulan or Spanish into English? Does that really work? I don't know anybody who has experience with that kind of a level of an interface/user experience. If it really worked, I'd think Timekettle would be dwarfed by apple AirPods et al so I'd be skeptical right now. But, hey, I'd love hear from someone who has actual experience with a TImekettle type device.

Try it! Tell us if it works!

Happy travels.

For years I've seen promises of small, automatic, real-time translation devices and I'm not sure there's enough salt in Sicily for the amount I need to take these "announcements" with.

I'm sure every tech giant has a division working on this but Google Glass has just recently shipped hearing enhancement glasses but they are just effectively high tech hearing aids and they are pushing the edges of practical everyday technology. And these are just filtering and amplifying the live sound around, Now add the need for constant high speed data connection, sending everything you hear to the cloud and filtering for voices, translating those voices and transmitting them back to in real time. The processing and battery needs alone combined with the need for consistent wireless data present huge challenges.

Like computers driving cars it is a task that seems "simple enough" but the amount of data input, filtering and processing in real time in an unpredictable world makes it really hard. In a controlled situation like a lab with one person sitting across from you speaking clearly I'm sure it's easily doable. Walking around a market in Italy with the a crush of people moving and 20 conversations going on around you in multiple languages and dialects, vendors yelling, traffic noise and music playing all wrapped up in a pair of earbuds? I remain skeptical at best.

Happy travels everyone,
=Tod

"Now add the need for constant high speed data connection, sending everything you hear to the cloud and filtering for voices, translating those voices and transmitting them back to in real time."

Something like that needs to be local to the glasses/device, like offline Google translate. Seems possible, but expensive for now. Going to the compute available in the cloud is just a current "cheat" to make things possible that (currently) wouldn't be.

That and the revenue some companies get from the traffic (ads and such).

Agreed @RobertH.

With a dedicated computer in your pocket with the language loaded and a glasses rig with 3 lenses, LIDAR and directional microphones so they could spatially map who were talking to this seems potentially possible. But short of some dedicated rig like Apple's Vision Pro this remains an elusive pipe dream. And wearing something like this should not be anyone's idea of a vacation or "mingling with the locals".

Reminds me of the tone deaf IBM commercial years ago where a guy was wearing some kind of a VR smart rig in Piazza San Marco trading stocks yelling "Sell! Sell!" and scaring the pigeons. Everyone's immediate reaction was "Why would you travel to Venice and do choose to be doing that instead of seeing Venice? What a loser."

As frustrating as it can be I feel the language struggle is part of the experience. Now in Paris English language menus appear and apps in your language arrange things for you but something of the sense of "foreign" travel is lost.

My $.02,
=Tod

Ok, understood. I guess I was searching for a total immersive experience that’s not fully created yet, but who knows with AI and all it technology moving so quickly it may be possible one day. Lol

Well Deedee0708, I was talking to this time traveler from the future and he said the future isn't what it used to be so, yeah, I don't know if this computer/cyborg/translator thing is gonna be what we all hope it will be after all.

For instance, in this movie called the terminator, the machines can all talk in every language but on the other hand they want to exterminate us so, sure, tradeoffs I suppose....

Happy travels.