Google translate

[peregrina2000]

Since I´m usually the last to know about technology developments, everyone may already know about this one. I spent the weekend at a friend´s house in Madrid this weekend, and she showed me an ap on her phone from google translate. She speaks into it in Spanish and it comes out in English, and vice versa. And there is a long list of possible languages. It seemed pretty amazing to me, and I thought it could be very helpful on those caminos where there are few pilgrims and few people speaking anything other than castellano or gallego.

Has anyone had a more sustained experience with this to tell us if it really does work? Buen camino, Laurie

 

[Deleted member 3000]

In the Chrome browser, Google Translate automatically translates articles. Sometimes they are hysterical, but that can make it an experience in its own right.

In Torres del Rio the hospitalero would type in Spanish and his laptop would speak in English. I am not sure it was Google Translate, but it was quite effective. It would work just as well on a smart phone.

 

[Deleted member 22638]

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Has anyone had a more sustained experience with this to tell us if it really does work? Buen camino, Laurie

It works well enough while you have a WiFi link, I really enjoyed using it.

I did not find it worked quickly enough when using it over the phone network ( but my signal here is no so strong.)

So it may be very useful once you have signed into a WiFi ( remember those 22 letter hieroglyphs) or are lucky enough to have a 3g/4g signal

 

[Fritz]

Laurie, a great thing to share, thank you. I've used Google translate on a desktop and saw a hospitalero and his laptop using it to answer basic questions. I also spent a nice dinner conversation with the international versions of Wikipedia as we bounced between English and French. Having it on a phone or tablet would be a huge help! Just for fun, and as an example, I am posting this English post and then the Galacian translation. Then I put in Google's Galacian and translated it back to English.

Google's version in Galacian:

Laurie , unha gran cousa para compartir , grazas. Eu usei o Google Translate nun escritorio e viu un hospitalero e seu portátil usándoo para responder a preguntas básicas . Eu tamén pasei un bo xantar conversa coas versións internacionais do Wikipedia como nós saltou entre inglés e francés . Telo nun teléfono ou tablet sería unha gran axuda ! Só por diversión , e como exemplo , estou postea este post inglés e , a continuación, a tradución Galacian . Entón eu coloque en Galacian de Google e traduciu -lo de volta para o inglés .

Google's Galacian back to Google's English:

Laurie , a great thing to share, thanks . I used Google Translate on a desk and saw a hospitable and using your laptop to answer basic questions . I also spent a good dinner conversation with international versions of Wikipedia as we bounced between English and French. Telo a phone or tablet would be a great help! Just for fun, and as such , I am posting this post English and then the translation Galacian . So I put in Galacian of Google and translated it back to English .

It's not perfect, but close enough to have a fun conversation and maybe a few laughs.

 

[Peter Fransiscus]

Since I´m usually the last to know about technology developments, everyone may already know about this one. I spent the weekend at a friend´s house in Madrid this weekend, and she showed me an ap on her phone from google translate. She speaks into it in Spanish and it comes out in English, and vice versa. And there is a long list of possible languages. It seemed pretty amazing to me, and I thought it could be very helpful on those caminos where there are few pilgrims and few people speaking anything other than castellano or gallego.

Has anyone had a more sustained experience with this to tell us if it really does work? Buen camino, Laurie

Hy Laurie , workshops ok for me, but sometimes the translation is hillarius. Most of the time it is fine , Buen Camino, Peter.

 

[jirit]

Hi Laurie

You did not mention the name of the app but a mobile app I have used in the past is Jibbigo. The technology developed by Jibbigo was used for the Lonely Planet mobile offline translators.

I have the original Lonely Planet Spanish/English translator (no longer available) and the Jibbigo mobile app (recently acquired by Facebook, thus no longer available for sale). The nice thing about the apps is they can be used offline

More on this company

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jibbigo


Regards

 

[wayfarer]

I have that Google Translate app on my S5 and it works well on the voice setting. I have checked this with my sons partner who is Spanish and she says its pretty good. I assume the typing setting works the same. Star Trek becomes a reality.

 

[kmrice]

Has anyone had a more sustained experience with this to tell us if it really does work? Buen camino, Laurie

There was a fun article in yesterday's Washington Post by a woman who met her now husband while working in Haiti. She is American and spoke only English; he was a French soldier and spoke only French. They used Google Translate (this was before the voice version) and the relationship flowered into marriage (with some misunderstanding from time to time). So, I guess Google Translate does work!

 

[pilgrim b]

The app from App store I have is called "Say Hi" https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sayhi-translate/id437818260?mt=8 it does just as peregrino2000 says my son's partner teaches Spanish for a living she was amazed at the ability of a very cheap app!

 

[jmcarp]

I haven't checked recently, but before my wife and I switched from Androids to iPhones a year or so ago, the Android version of Google Translate let you download the entire dictionary for one or more languages,dependent on the memory in the phone, of course, which meant you didn't have to use cellular data or wifi to translate. That would be great while walking the Camino. However, the last time I checked, the iPhone version of Google Translate does not allow downloading and storing a language dictionary . After using it in real world situations, it's my impression that Google translate is pretty good for short exchanges, such as with a merchant, but probably is not great for a conversation due to the literalness (if that's a word) of its translation.

We use Google Translate both ways when corresponding with friends and distant relatives in Italy who don't speak English (our Italian is even more limited than our high school Spanish). It seems to work OK -- at least there have been no serious misunderstandings thus far.

 

[GettingThere]

I haven't checked recently, but before my wife and I switched from Androids to iPhones a year or so ago, the Android version of Google Translate let you download the entire dictionary for one or more languages,dependent on the memory in the phone, of course, which meant you didn't have to use cellular data or wifi to translate. That would be great while walking the Camino. However, the last time I checked, the iPhone version of Google Translate does not allow downloading and storing a language dictionary . After using it in real world situations, it's my impression that Google translate is pretty good for short exchanges, such as with a merchant, but probably is not great for a conversation due to the literalness (if that's a word) of its translation.

We use Google Translate both ways when corresponding with friends and distant relatives in Italy who don't speak English (our Italian is even more limited than our high school Spanish). It seems to work OK -- at least there have been no serious misunderstandings thus far.

I downloaded the Android version recently, and it's definitely still possible to import the entire dictionary for the languages you want (eg Spanish and English) in order for it to work offline. HOWEVER - the voice feature does not work offline, as I found to my disappointment. So you can type in the word or phrase you want to translate, but you can't use the speech function unless you are connected to the internet. It would be great if Google made this possible in a future update of the app - I like it and it's surprisingly accurate for short sentences.

 

[newfydog]

Google translate gets better and better.

to test it out, here is your original post. I translated it into Spanish, and back to English. It still makes sense, a claim one would not have made a few years ago!

Since I'm usually the last to know about the evolution of technology, everyone already knows about this. I spent the weekend at a friend's house in Madrid this weekend, and she showed me on his cell AP Google translator. She speaks Spanish and leaves him in English, and vice versa. And there is a long list of languages as possible. It seemed quite surprising to me, and I found it very useful where there might be ways those few pilgrims and few people speak anything thereof: Castilian Galician gold.

Has anyone had sustained more experience with it to tell us whether it really work? Track, Laurie

 

[jeffnd]

I downloaded the Android version recently, and it's definitely still possible to import the entire dictionary for the languages you want (eg Spanish and English) in order for it to work offline. HOWEVER - the voice feature does not work offline, as I found to my disappointment. So you can type in the word or phrase you want to translate, but you can't use the speech function unless you are connected to the internet. It would be great if Google made this possible in a future update of the app - I like it and it's surprisingly accurate for short sentences.

I used the offline version to help my friend when he was having issues with a SIM card. It seemed to work fine.

Another friend, who is multilingual, claims it's the devil!

 

[Deleted member 22638]

but you can't use the speech function unless you are connected to the internet. It would be great if Google made this possible in a future update of the app - I like it and it's surprisingly accurate for short sentences.

Yes that is my experience. I suspect the memory needed to have access offline to audio would be prohibitive for most phones - though having moved from iPhone to Android I can now link to an external hard drive so it may be theoretically possible, the issue then would be download time if the audio file is Terabytes?

I'm just thinking out loud. Does anyone on the forum have expertise in this area?

 

[LTfit]

I had the Google App on my iPhone and now on my Sony (android) but the accuracy for anything more than a word or a sentence is questionable imho.

I use the function that Falcon mentions for articles in Catalán but the result is poor, I usually end up trying to decifer using my French and Spanish.

Just imagine the hilarious situations that couple must have experienced using it as the only means of communication!

 

[Kitsambler]

The voice translator was invaluable while travelling in the Czech Republic. I could actually hold decent conversations with my hosts.
The key to success with any of these computer-based translators, whether text or voice: (1) Use very simple sentence construction (i.e., without clauses); (2) Use short but complete sentences; (3) Avoid figures of speech (such as, "I slept like a log."); (4) Avoid colloquialisms (such as, "Not so much!"). The voice translators don't like my Southern accent, often.

Actually these are all pretty much the rules for speaking English to non-native speakers, anyhow.

 

[ebrandt]

Just for fun, I used Bing Translator online to translate a fairly normal sentence from a novel into French, then I translated that into Russian, and that into Thai and that back into English. It's a fantastic laugh for geeks to do while drinking. I wish I had the time at the moment to give you an example but... put it at the bottom of you bucket list.

I use Google translate all the time to translate web pages and emails from Spanish, Danish and Finnish to English and visa versa. For shot things it great. I've found the bing translator to be very inferior and gave up using it a while ago. Liz