If you’re traveling abroad, conversing with a friend who speaks another language, reading a foreign language article, or doing Internet research, you need help! Lucky for you, there’s a bumper crop of new and improved apps and gadgets for translation. The problem is separating the best from the mediocre. We review what we have found to be the top mobile apps, desktop apps, and translation gadgets so that you can communicate adequately in foreign languages, wherever you are.
App Translation and Localization
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Even before we get into apps and gadgets for the consumer, let’s touch briefly on a translation issue that confronts ever business owner, whether they sell products or services. If you happen to be in such a business, you need to undertake website localization and, increasingly, app localization. Doing so enables you to enter foreign markets and reach people with a different language. What this means is working with a professional translation agency or software localization specialist, freelance translators, machine translation software, or a combination of these options. Let’s briefly touch on these alternatives.
1.Professional Translation and Localization Agencies
Due to the widespread need to translate websites and apps, there’s an entire industry dedicating to globalizing software. Globalization simply means preparing products and services – along with their documentation and marketing collateral, their web, app, and social media presence – for multiple, multilingual markets. These agencies charge a premium (typically 50-100% more than standalone freelancers) for their expert services. However, if you have the budget, they can cut time to market and deliver quality based on their extensive experience and worldwide connection to linguistic resources.
How best to work with agencies? Most offer free quotations, and they usually charge based on the word-count of your source document or specific language services that you request them to deliver. If there is software to be globalized, make sure you work with an agency that has this specific expertise, which goes well beyond translating one natural language to additional ones and requires technical skills.
Some agencies guarantee to fix any error found for a specific time period, in the (presumably unlikely) event that a mistake is found. Before beginning, it’s important to optimize your source document or web pages for translation. Make sure that task is part of the deal, or work with in-house resources or freelancers to whip the source into shape. That will cut translation costs and improve translation quality.
2.Freelance Translation Agencies
These days, there are robust freelance networks that help you find qualified resources for a wide variety of tasks, language services and translation being high among the services in demand. Upwork is considered the leader in this batch, but consider the quirky and casual Fiverr for fun gigs and consider the upstart translation-only network SmartCat to access its claimed network of 250,000 translators.
Tips for working with freelancers? Search only for top-rated (90% satisfaction or higher) mother-tongue linguists with proven experience going from and to the specific languages you need. Ask for a short trial, either for free or a nominal fee. Read reviews and ask for references. Usually it’s wise to hire two freelancers for each language pair, one to check the work of the other.
Welcome to the Machine: AI-Driven Translation Apps
In the last decade, there has been dramatic progress in the quality of what is called machine translation. The continual improvement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has led to rapid acceleration in the quality of translation. The main difference between business uses of online translators and consumer uses is that what is at stake in the former is typically higher than in the latter.
Tips for picking a machine translator? There’s no avoiding Google Translate, the leading desktop and mobile translation application for both business and consumer translations. Recent editions of the mobile app let you point you smartphone camera at a foreign language text source, on a menu or a sign, for example, choose your target language, and watch the image magically transpose into the desired translation. It’s still rough around the edges but the results are impressive and the potential amazing.
The Microsoft Translator mobile app, downloadable in iOS and Android editions, also has some nifty features. After entering its “conversation” mode, you’ll receive a code. Give it to your listeners, and they can join the conversation, getting your side of the conversation in their own language and translating their side of their conversation into yours.
Translation Gadgets
While most translators on the market are software-only apps that run on iOS or Android for your mobile phone, there are companies that make translator gadgets that claim to realize the dream of universal two-way voice translation, enabling fluent conversation between people who have no common language. Let’s say you are an English-only in Spain or Latin America and want to ask directions. You will ask your question into the translator and the device will translate within seconds from English-to-Spanish. Your helpful local will then answer in Spanish and your translator gadget will provide the directions in English. That’s the dream, anyway. Do the latest batch of gadgets deliver the goods?
The answer is…. It would seem so. Search for “two-way voice translators”. If you do so on Amazon.com, you will come to a page of gadget options. Filtering for results with abundant reviews resulting in a score exceeding 4 stars, there are a few standout devices worth considering.
- Buoth snags Amazon Choice kudos with 5-star ratings, camera translation and support for 106 languages and a price tag nudging $200.
- Birgus offers several models, with HD screen sizes from 2.4” to 2.8, two-way voice translators, support for 40+ languages and camera translation mode. Prices in the $140-199.
- Syuan breaks the $100 price point with an ultra-slim camera-less gadget with built-in microphone and speaker that pair via Bluetooth with your phone.
So, bottom line, you won’t be lost in translation for long these days. But you may get lost again trying to find the best translation solution in the ever-expanding abundance of choices.