Translate foreign text using your Android camera and Google Translate
This is the third part of the travel apps series for Android here on Ghacks that reviews useful applications when traveling abroad. The first two parts of the series review an offline currency converter and an offline maps application.
It can be quite difficult to find your way around in a country if you don't speak the language, or, even worse, cannot even read most signs on the streets.
While you may be able to get around by using languages you understand, it may sometimes be useful to translate signs or other text right away as it may speed things up or be the only option if no one is around who you could ask.
Google Translate offers that, provided that the language you are interested in is supported. While that is usually the case for text input, it won't do you any good if you cannot input the text because of missing language packs.
Google Translate offers a couple of options that may help you in that case. First, it supports photo translations.
That's excellent as you can take a snapshot with your device's camera to have the text displayed on it translated by the service. This does require a network connection though.
The second feature lets you input signs or characters directly in the application's interface using handwriting. Basically, draw the characters that you want translated on the screen to get a translation right away. This too requires a network connection.
While you may download language packages for offline use, they won't do you any good when it comes to camera translations or translations for signs you draw on the screen.
Only a few languages support instant camera translations and you get mostly translations from English to another language or from (mostly) other European languages to English. Unfortunately there is no offline support for Asian languages yet.
Configuring offline language packages
To install offline language packages or offline instant camera packages in the Google Translate application do the following:
- Open the Google Translate application on your device.
- Tap on the menu icon at the top right and select settings.
- Tap on offline languages or instant camera languages, and pick the languages or language combinations that you want offline access for.
- Most language packs have a size of a couple hundred Megabytes.
- The instant camera packages have a much smaller size
Tip for translating Japanese, Chinese or Korean text on photos to English
If you require offline photo translation support for at least one of the three languages mentioned above, you may want to check out Translator, Dictionary - Waygo instead.
Please note that the free version is limited to 10 daily translations, and that you can purchase the full version for $4 to unlock the full potential of the application.
The app supports offline translations which sets it apart from Google's own offering.
Thanks for the tip Martin.
It is for these kinds of posts that I follow GHacks.
What’s up with the generic comment, are you a bot?
2G?
Where on the planet is that still in use? I was forced to give up using my RAZRV3 years ago because 2G was phased out by AT&T.
Everywhere 3G has been turned off and you don’t have LTE coverage, and believe me there are many developed countries where this is the case and if it weren’t for 2G you wouldn’t even be able to make a phone call.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe tha term “2G” is in the article. Perhaps you are referring to “AGM G2”??
@Martin
Your website has gone insane.
When I the post button I then saw my comment posted on a different article page. When I opened this article again, it is here.
@Tachy @Martin Brinkmann
” Your website has gone insane. ”
Same here. Has happened several times.
@Tachy,
@Martin P.,
For over two weeks now,
I’ve been seeing “Comments” posted by subscribers appearing in different, unrelated articles.
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572991
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572951
For the time being,
it would be better to specify the “article name and URL” at the beginning of the post.
@tachy a lot of non-phone devices with a sim in them rely on 2G, at least here in europe.
Usually things reporting usage or errors/alarms on something remote that does not get day to day inspection in person. They are out there in vast numbers doing important work. Reliable, good range. The low datarate is no problem at all in those cases.
3G is gone or on its last legs everywhere, but this stuff still has too much use to cancel.
Anyhow, interesting that they would put that in. I can see the point if you suspect a hostile 2G environment (amateur eavesdroppers with laptop, ranging up to professional grade MITM fake towers while “strangely” not getting the stronger crypto voip 4G because it is being jammed, and back down to something as old ‘stingray’ devices fallen into the wrong hands).
But does this also mean that they have handled and rolled out a fix for that nasty 4G ‘pwn by broadcast’ problem you reported earlier this year? I had 4G disabled due to that, on the off chance that some of the local criminals would buy some cheap chinese gear, download a working exploit and probe every phone in range all over town in the hope of getting into phones of the police.
>”While most may never be attacked in stingrays, it is still recommended to disable 2G cellular connections, especially since it does not have any downsides.”
The downside would be losing connectivity. I spend a lot of time way out in the countryside where there’s often no service or almost none. My network allows 2G, and I need it sometimes. I have an option on the phone to disable 2G, I may do that when I’m in the city and I have good 5G connectivity, but not out in the country.
I would imagine that the stingray exploits, like most of the bad things in this world, are probably things you will run into in the crowded big cities.
I stopped using it in a mobile (Wi-Fi line) environment, so I’m almost ignorant of the actual situation,
But the recent reality in Japan makes me realize that “the infrastructure of the web is nothing more than a papier-mâché fiction”.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/17/google-chrome-to-enable-https-first-by-default-for-all-users/#comment-4572402
It is already beyond the scope of what an individual can do.
What we should be aware of is the reality that “governments and those in power want to control the world through the Web”, and efforts to counter (resist and prevent) such ambitions are necessary.
Why do you want people to disable the privacy features? Hmmmmm?
Now You: do you plan to keep the Ads privacy features enabled?
I’d like to tell you, but apparently if you make a post critical of Google, you get censored. * [Editor: removed, just try to bring your opinion across without attacking anyone]
@Martin
You website is still psychotic. Comments attach to random stories.
@Martin please do fix the comments, it’s completely insane commenting here! :[
@Martin
The comments are seriously messed up on gHacks now. These comments are mixed with the article at the below URL.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/18/android-how-to-disable-2g-cellular-connections-to-improve-security/
And comments on other articles are from as far back as 2010.
What does this article has anything to do with all the comments on this article? LOL I think this Websuite is ran by ChatGPT. every article is messed up. Some older comments from 2015 shown up in recant articles, LOL
The picture captioned “Clearing the Android Auto’s cache might resolve the issue” is from Apple Carplay ;)
How about other things that matter:
Drop survival?
Screen toughness?
Degree of water and dust protection?