Well, many of you probably are using Google Translate while surfing already. This powerful instant translator (between 90 languages) would let you browse and understand almost every webpage in the world- Russian, Japanese, Thai, Italian…. AND you can get translation by speaking to it, or taking a photo of a sign or menu in another language! The latest version is capable of Automatic language detection in speech/conversation mode – start translating with speech input and Translate will recognise which of the two languages is being spoken, allowing you to have a more fluid conversation with another person. Well, what happens if you’ve no internet while travelling? That’s OK, Read on as I’m going to show you how…
- Download and Install Google Translate to your phone – go to here (Android) , or here for iPhone for description, then search in App Store on your iphone to install directly.
- For Android phone, Open it, tab Settings / Manage Offline languages, then just select and click the download icon to save that language to your phone – Remember to do this before you travel to that country and while you’ve have wifi access.
- For iPhones, not so powerful yet, but you can star (basically save) your favorite translated phrases/sentences for future offline use. Just click the star icon to the right top of the translated phrase/sentence (turning it yellow) and it will be saved for retrieval when you click the star icon at the bottom 3 tab bar.
Note: for Android users, you still lose the capability of voice input/interactive voice translation or photo translation even with downloaded offline language support but no internet.