How to Talk to the World Through Free Translation Apps - The New York Times - Translation

Open up Google Translate or Apple’s Translate and your mobile device turns into your personal language interpreter.

Need to have a conversation in a language you don’t know, make sense of a printed sign or quickly translate a message? With Google and Apple revving their machine-learning engines in their Google Translate and Apple’s Translate apps, there’s a whole new world of communication possibilities right in your pocket.

Keep in mind that computer interpretation is not perfect. You may get some awkward translations (and stares). Third-party apps may be more in depth. But these freebies can provide a general sense of things and become learning aids. Here’s a quick tour.

Pick Your Translator

Google Translate is in its 15th year and available on the web, as a Chrome browser extension and as an Android and an iOS app. Apple released its Translate app last year for the iPhone and added it to last month’s iOS 15 update for the iPad.

For simple translations in Google Translate, far left, or Apple’s Translate, just pick the languages you want to use and then type or speak the words you want to translate.Far left, Google; near left, Apple

Google Translate supports more than 100 languages, while the version from Apple handles 11. Depending on the app and language, you may need an internet connection, unless the content is available to download for offline use. Audio pronunciation or other features may not be available for some languages. And read the app’s privacy policy if you have data-sharing concerns.

Google Translate, far left, and Apple’s Translate both have a Conversation mode for bilingual chats between two people.Far left, Google; near left, Apple

Google Translate and Apple’s Translate are fairly easy to use. Just tap open the app and choose the languages you want to translate between. Enter text or say it aloud to get the translation through screen and speaker.

The Apple Translate app is now avilable on the iPad in iOS 15 and provides a bigger screen for two-way conversations.Apple

Both apps support a Conversation mode, where you can carry out a bilingual chat (in a supported language) with someone as the app automatically translates. And you can save favorite phrases for later reference in both apps.

See It and Read It

Google Translate and the Google Lens visual search tool can use your phone’s camera to scan and translate the text on signs, in books, within photographs and in other printed matter. Just open the camera app, point it at the text you want to convert and tap the Translate button.

It’s important to remember that automatic translations are not perfect, that they sometimes lack nuance or context — and that your results may vary.From left, Stephen Barnes/iStock, via Getty Images; Google; Apple

Apple’s Live Text feature, new with iOS 15, offers similar abilities. Point the camera at text and when a yellow frame appears around the words, tap the text icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Select the words to convert and tap Translate from the pop-up menu on the screen. You can translate text in photos the same way.

Apple’s Live Text tool in iOS 15 can recognize words in images and provide translation services.Apple

Translating in Other Apps

You’ll find that the baked-in powers of translation extend to other compatible apps, too. For example, in Google Translate on an Android phone, tap the Menu icon in the top-left corner, choose Settings and enable the Tap to Translate function. When you find text that you want to convert, highlight the words and tap the Translate option in the pop-up menu, then select the language you want.

When you select text in certain apps (like the NASA app shown here) and tap Translate from the pop-up menu, Google Translate converts the selection to the supported language of your choice.Far left, NASA; near left, Google

Apple’s Translate converts text in compatible apps on iOS devices (like the Safari browser) and can replace text you’ve typed with a translated version. Select the text you want to convert, and from the menu above, tap Translate; you may need to tap the arrow at the end of the menu to get to that option. When the full Translate menu appears, you can see and hear the translation and then choose one of several options, including Replace with Translation.

Tap the address bar in the Safari browser for an option to translate websites in other languages.Apple

Use the Digital Assistant

Don’t forget that your virtual assistant can also be of service. The Google Assistant for Android and iOS has an interpreter mode to translate conversations in dozens of languages on demand. Just say something like “Hey, Google, be my Mandarin interpreter” and follow along. Apple’s Siri works with the Translate app to provide quick language tips as well — just say something like “Hey, Siri, how do I say, ‘Where’s the nearest train station?’ in French?”

The Google Assistant, far left, has an “interpreter mode” for translating real-time chats. When asked, Apple’s Siri assistant can also provide quick translations for certain languages.Far left, Google; near left, Apple

Typing in Translation

While the apps provide hands-free interpretations, there may be times when you want to type in a language you already know (or don’t). Android and iOS both include alternate keyboard layouts for dozens of languages.

To add an alternate-language keyboard in Google’s Gboard for Android or iOS, open an app that accepts text input (like your mail app), tap the Settings icon, then Languages and Add Keyboard to select a language. Tap the three-dot More icon on the Gboard menu to get to a Google Translate option for your typed text.

Google Translate, far left, can translate text as you type it. Both Android and iOS include dozens of keyboards in different languages for natives and novices to use, although not all keyboard languages are fully compatible with the translation apps.Far left, Google; near left, Apple

On an iPhone or iPad running iOS 15, open the Settings icon and choose General and then Keyboard. Select Add New Keyboard and choose a language from the menu. Once you have added the new keyboard(s), you can switch between them by pressing the globe icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen.

And what to do if a native speaker tells you the app’s translation is way off? Visit the Help & Feedback menu in the Google Translate settings or report it to Apple’s Translate Feedback page.

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ELKS PROVIDE 310 FREE DICTIONARIES - Daily Journal Online - Dictionary

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ELKS PROVIDE 310 FREE DICTIONARIES  Daily Journal Online

Lost in translation: Some Somali leaders report difficulty finding vaccine information in Grand Forks - Grand Forks Herald - Translation

That, Yussuf said, is because she wasn’t sure where she could get vaccinated in Grand Forks.

“Nobody told me,” said Yussuf, who runs the Safari Market off Gateway Drive. Many of her customers have made the same trip across the Red River, she said, and they’ve often hitched a ride with Abdirisak Duale, the director of the New Americans Integration Center.

Duale said that some Grand Forks immigrants, mostly Somali, have been unsure where to go to get a COVID-19 vaccine because Grand Forks Public Health hasn’t adequately translated materials about vaccines or kept in touch with him and other immigrant leaders who can pass on information about clinic sites and so on.

It frustrates the normally mild-mannered Duale, who notes that many immigrants – often called “New Americans” in civic parlance – don’t speak English well.

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“Anyone who doesn’t speak English is unable to stay updated on the pandemic,” he told the Herald. “A lot of people when they ask me where we can get the vaccine, I don’t have the information for the Grand Forks side.”

So where’s the disconnect?

Lots of materials, few translations

At the mobile vaccination clinics they set up across the city this summer, Grand Forks Public Health staff were ready to hand out translated materials about vaccines.

“We hit every neighborhood,” Haley Bruhn, who heads the health department’s vaccination effort, said.

They also set up shop at other Grand Forks get-togethers, such as a community picnic hosted by the Global Friends Coalition and a celebration of World Refugee Day. That strategy, Bruhn noted, assumes that people are already present at the vaccine clinic.

Health department staff hung notes about COVID vaccines on doors throughout Grand Forks, including, with help from landlords, inside some secured apartment buildings. They dropped off fliers about vaccines at Hugo’s grocery stores for staff there to give to customers. And they produced a series of fliers that outlined the mobile vaccine clinic’s weekly schedule for staff at school lunch sites to hand to patrons there, too. They also publicized that weekly schedule online.

But the materials they distributed that way were not translated out of English, according to Tiffany Boespflug, a health promotion team leader at Grand Forks Public Health. She also said she wasn’t aware of any request to translate any of the health department’s promotional materials into another language.

Fliers did, however, have a QR code that would direct users to a city webpage with vaccine information – also written in English. A drop-down menu near the top of the page allows visitors to use a Google service to translate the page into several other languages, including Spanish and Arabic. The page doesn’t have a ready option to translate itself into Somali or Nepali – two of the more prominent languages spoken by Grand Forks-area immigrants – but city staff said users can change the settings on their web browsers to add those languages.

Similarly, the health department’s Facebook posts about its vaccination efforts stayed in English. Boespflug noted that the site sometimes offers users an option to generate a translated version of a given post into the language of their choice.

A flier in Somali advertising a July vaccine clinic put together by Polk County Public Health. Contributed / Abdirisak Duale.

Rely on other organizations

Bruhn said the health department relied on other Grand Forks and North Dakota institutions, such as Global Friends and some faith-based organizations, to handle outreach.

“We know some of this work is already being addressed by other groups, so we don’t need to start duplicating it yet because we’re doing the things that those other groups can’t do,” Bruhn said. “The Office of Health Equity at the state can’t vaccinate 30,000 people at the Alerus Center, but they can work with those sub-populations and try to help them.”

Mayor Brandon Bochenski and other city staff also have convened regular meetings at Grand Forks City Hall with Duale and other leading figures in the “NFI” – “New American, Foreign-born, or Immigrant” – community. The aim of those meetings, according to Public Affairs Manager Greta Silewski, was to make sure residents’ concerns were forwarded to the right people.

Whenever city, county, and Altru Health System staff agreed to move Grand Forks County into the next phase of its tiered vaccination effort last spring, city administrators would have notices saying as much translated into Somali, Nepali, and a few languages, which they’d then send to Duale and other immigrant leaders for further distribution.

When vaccines were opened to the general public last spring, those same leaders and Bochenski announced it in multiple languages in a video produced by city staff. Some also recounted their reasons for receiving a vaccine.

At that time, vaccines were available through the city’s consolidated vaccination program at the Alerus Center, which required residents to sign up ahead of time by calling a phone number or by using Altru’s “MyChart” webpage. That page is also written in English and does not have a method to translate it. The hospital has translated some Facebook posts into Somali and other languages, according to spokesman Kenneth Harvey, and it offers free interpretation services.

“It would be nice if they would distribute fliers in Somali and put it out in our location,” Faisal Ali, who’s lived in Grand Forks since 2013, told the Herald via Mohamed Mohamed, the head of the East Grand Forks Islamic Center. “A good idea.”

Mohamed, who lives in East Grand Forks, was reluctant to speak about the state of Grand Forks’ outreach, but he lauded Polk County Public Health’s efforts.

“On my end, they’re doing an excellent job,” he said.

Polk County staff have commissioned translations for a host of COVID-19 materials, including advertisements for vaccine clinics, and they’ve had translators or interpreters present at those clinics. Those materials are also disseminated through organizations like Duale’s.

That effort, in Duale’s estimation, means Polk County Public Health has done a better job at that sort of outreach than their counterparts in Grand Forks. Seven Grand Forks residents headed to an East Grand Forks vaccine clinic last week, Duale claimed.

Staff at New Hope for Immigrants, an East Grand Forks-based nonprofit, have been putting together their own fliers in Somali and Arabic that spread the word about COVID-19 vaccines. They've since made a video that does the same in conjunction with Global Friends Coalition, according to Ilhaam Hassan, New Hope’s executive director.

Hassan also said she hasn’t herself heard of the difficulty that Duale has run into.

“Maybe back in May or April,” she said, “but not right now.”

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IU Library Acquires Massive Dictionary Collection - Inside INdiana Business - Dictionary

IU says less than one-third of the collection, or about 6,000 volumes, have been inventoried. In addition to dictionaries, the collection includes correspondence and business records from the Merriam-Webster company, which is believed to include the original letter about the benefits of purchasing Webster's 1841 edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language, Corrected and Enlarged.

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Pixel 6 can ‘Live Translate’ your messages, images, and transcribed audio locally - 9to5Google - Translation

As one of the many benefits of built-in Tensor machine learning, the Pixel 6 will be able to “Live Translate” incoming messages, text in your camera viewfinder, and transcribed audio — even when offline.

Over the years, Google Translate has steadily gained a reputation for aiding communication across languages, even being integrated into services like Twitter and YouTube. In many cases, you need an internet connection to use Google Translate, but the Android app allows you to download certain languages for offline translations.

With the machine learning prowess of the Pixel 6 series’ Tensor chip, Google is introducing a suite of features it calls “Live Translate” that can work using downloaded language models. In addition to making translation available while offline, doing translations directly on your device also allows more potential for privacy.

More importantly, Live Translate is integrated where you need it most. For example, rather than needing to switch between apps to carry a conversation, Live Translate can — in supported apps like Google Messages, WhatsApp, Line, and more — show the translated version of your conversation directly in the app, just like Google Translate does for web pages. Upon receiving multiple messages in a supported language, Live Translate will offer the option to switch to showing your preferred language, while Gboard can translate your intended message into your partner’s language.

Or, if you’re trying to watch a video in another language, Live Translate can work in conjunction with the Pixel series’ Live Caption feature to transcribe audio playing on your phone then translate it into your language. That said, only a handful languages, such as English, Japanese, and German, support these captions so far.

Meanwhile, Google is also taking the debut of Live Translate on Pixel 6 as an opportunity to highlight and upgrade some of its existing translating capabilities. The Google Lens feature built into Pixel’s Camera app is capable of reading text in other languages, translating it, and placing it back into your viewfinder, using augmented reality, a feature which can now work offline with 55 languages and 104 online.

Similarly, Google Assistant’s “Interpreter Mode,” which audibly translates active conversations between participants in two languages, is gaining the ability to work offline using an on-device model. For now, only translations between English, German, and Japanese are supported offline, while 48 are supported when online.

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Google's Pixel 6 can translate text as you type - Engadget - Translation

Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro have a lot of AI tricks up their sleeves, and among them is a Live Translate feature. With Google's first mobile chip, Tensor, Pixel 6 can translate text as you type. Translation is handled by the Private Compute Core rather than in the cloud, so the device can convert what you're writing into other languages (including English, French, German, Italian and Japanese) almost instantaneously.

The phones can also translate messages someone sends to you. The Pixel 6 can detect when text in a chat app, such as WhatsApp or Snapchat, is in a different language to your own one and it offers a translation. 

The feature should come in handy for chatting with friends from other corners of the world who have a different mother tongue and might not understand all the nuances of your language. Live Translate could also prove useful when you're traveling somewhere with limited data and WiFi connectivity.

Google is placing a big focus on Tensor-powered AI features in Pixel 6 devices. Along with Live Translate, the phones have other language detection features and improved speech recognition. There's a Wait Time feature that shows the expected length of time you'll be on hold for thousands of prominent companies in the US. Pixel 6 can also convert automated call center menus into an onscreen interface.

Catch up on all the latest news from Google's Pixel 6 event!

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

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Lost in translation: Language barrier is hurting commercialisation in Australia - ZDNet - Translation

Jacob Ammentorp Lund, Getty Images/iStockphoto

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) chief scientist Bronwyn Fox has described that there is a language barrier between Australia's industry and the university sectors, which has impacted the country's commercialisation levels and ultimately potential innovations.

"How can we incentivise mobility across the industry and the university sector … because at the moment, the university sector is very unfriendly to anyone who has an industry CV and who doesn't have a track record of a million publications," said Fox, speaking on a panel during the virtual Collaborate Innovate 2021 event on Tuesday.

"We need to change the system so that we can embrace those people back into the university sector, and CSIRO is already starting to do that."

Fox, who is two weeks into her new role, noted the need for both parties to "speak the same language".

"We need to understand each other's KPIs, and we need to align our values and develop really respectful relationships that have deep trust," she said.

Global Company Network Australia executive director Kylie Porter agreed the gap between researchers and businesses still exists -- and a key difference between the two is how they communicate.

"Quite often what happens is that we employ researchers, they produce really good research, but when it comes to writing out that research it's either too long, it's too convoluted, or it's too academic in nature, and what ends up happening is that we can't produce that actual piece of work to deliver to the business sector because it's just going to be lost in translation," she said.

"People in business don't have the time to read very hefty research, heavy publications in the same way that people in the academic industry do.

"Business language is far more precise than what we're seeing in a lot of the papers that are produced from the academic sector."

According to Siemens Australia CEO Jeff Connolly, the source of establishing working relationships with universities, government, as well as other companies is to focus on developing "with purpose of the future".

"We need to get the linkages working better and more systematic way to get better outcomes," he said.

Connolly touts the German tech giant invests some AU$7.5 billion globally in R&D annually, which results in 5,000 inventions every year and the production of 3,000 patents. Part of that work involves collaborating with universities, he said.

"This R&D spend largely occurs on our near-future developments, but what about further into the future? And that's something that, even with those resources, Siemens actually recognises we can't get that done by ourselves. We need to engage in universities to develop the technology with purpose of the future," Connolly said. 

In Australia, while Siemens does not have its own R&D centre, the company has established memorandums of understanding with government, universities, and other companies to collaborate on projects covering AI, mobility, agritech, and healthcare. 

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