Google Translate For Android Adds Speech-To-Speech Translations In 14 Languages

Google released an update today to its Google Translate app for Android that further knocks down language barriers. The Conversation Mode that was launched earlier this year allowed users to speak to the app and then have the app repeat what was said in the target language. However, this feature was only available for English and Spanish conversations. With this latest update, Google is expanding the speech-to-speech translation to 14 languages.

The 14 languages now supported by Conversation Mode include Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian, and Turkish. The feature, however, is still in alpha and could get a little wonky from background noise and regional accents. Google currently offers text translation for 63 languages and voice input translations for 17 of those languages.

To use the feature, you have to click on the microphone icon in the Translate app to speak what you want translated. The app then does the translation and says it back in the target language. The foreign language person, who you're attempting to communicate with, can then speak their response to the app, which will then translate and say their response back to you in English.

The Conversation Mode also now lets you easily correct a voice input before it gets translated and lets you tap-to-magnify translated text. To see the new Google Translate in action, watch the video below.

[via Google]