Google Translate was launched ten years ago to break language barriers and to make the world more accessible. This service was started with support for two languages and now it supports 103 languages. Google Translate is quite popular and is now being used by hundreds of millions across the globe.
Some of the salient features of Google Translate posted by Barak Turovsky, Product Lead, Google Translate
1. Translate can help people help each other, often in the most difficult of times. According to Google, they recently visited a community in Canada that is using Translate to break down barriers and make a refugee family feel more welcome.
2. There are more than 500 million users across the world using Google Translate. The most common translations are between English and Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese and Indonesian.
3. More than 100 billion words a day are translated by this service.
4. Translations reflect trends and events. In addition to common phrases like “I love you,” people are looking for translations related to current events and trends. For instance, last year Google saw a big spike in translations for the word “selfie,” and this past week, translations for “purple rain” spiked by more than 25,000 percent.
5. So far, 3.5 million people have made 90 million contributions through Translate Community, helping Google improve and add new languages to Google Translate. A few properly translated sentences can make a huge difference when faced with a foreign language or country.
6. With Word Lens feature, you can read menus, street signs and more. This feature in the Google Translate App lets you instantly see translations in 28 languages.
7. Google Translate currently supports nine of India’s 22 official languages. Voice search in Hindi and seven other Indian languages launched in June 2014. Visual translation from English to Hindi was added in July 2015 and Sindhi was added to the mix earlier this year.
8. You can have a conversation no matter what language you speak. In 2011, Google introduced the ability to have a bilingual conversation on Google Translate. The app will recognize which language is being spoken when you’re talking with someone, allowing you to have a natural conversation in 32 languages.
9. You don’t need an Internet connection to connect. Many countries don’t have reliable Internet, so it’s important to be able to translate on the go. You can instantly translate signs and menus offline with Word Lens on both Android and iOS, and translate typed text offline with Android.