Best Translation Android apps – 2022 - Android Headlines - Translation

Many of you have heard of Google Translate by now, and while it is one of the best translation apps out there, there are many more great such apps for Android. In this article, we’ll list some of the, just to give you more options. Not everyone likes Google Translate, and it probably doesn’t work for everyone’s use case. There are all kinds of different translation apps available, so you’ll hopefully like some of these.

We’ve listed 10 translation apps down below, in no particular order. The vast majority of them are not only free, but don’t come with in-app purchases either. Depending on what you need, you may prefer a different app. Some of them rely on camera translations, others not so much. Dive in, and see what works for you.

Best Translation Android apps 2022

Below is a quick overview of the best translation Android apps for 2022, including any download and in-app purchase costs.

	Download Cost	In-app cost (per item)
Google Translate	✕	✕
Microsoft Translator	✕	✕
Yandex Translate	✕	✕
Naver Papago	✕	✕
DeepL Translate	✕	✕
SayHi Translate	✕	✕
Scan & Translate	✕	$0.99-$29.99
Offline translator S&T	✕	$0.99-$9.99
Dictionary Linguee	✕	✕
BK Translate	✕	✕

Best Translation Android apps 2022 downloads

Below is a little more information on each app, and a direct link for easy downloading.

All download links go to the app’s Google Play Store listing. Users are always recommended to download apps from Google Play or an authorized app store.

Google Translate

• Price: Free to download
• In-app purchases: No
• Size: Varies with device
• Google Play rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars

Google Translate is easily the most popular application for translation for Android, and quite probably in general. It allows you to translate between 108 languages by typing, and you can also request translation for 59 languages while you’re offline. This app also offers instant camera translation, just by pointing your phone’s camera, for 94 languages.

You can also take or import photos in order to translate the text in them. This goes for 90 languages all over the world. Google Translate does support the translation of bilingual conversations on the fly for 70 languages. On top of all that, handwriting translations are also available, for 96 languages.

Download Google Translate

Microsoft Translator

• Price: Free to download
• In-app purchases: No
• Size: Varies with device
• Google Play rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars

Microsoft Translator is nowhere near as popular as Google Translate, and yet it has an immensely high rating in the Play Store. People seem to love using this app, so it may be worth a shot. This app is also free, and it allows you to request translation for over 70 languages all over the world.

The app can translate text, voice, conversations, camera photos, and even screenshots. It also allows you to download languages for offline translation, in case you’re traveling somewhere Multi-person conversation translations are also on offer here. The app also has phrasebooks for verified translations and pronunciation guides.

Download Microsoft Translator

Yandex Translate

• Price: Free to download
• In-app purchases: No
• Size: Varies with device
• Google Play rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Yandex Translate is another really capable app for translations. It can translate between 100 languages while you’re offline, and 7 while you’re offline. You can also speak the words or phrases in several languages for the app to recognize them, and translate them. The app also has a dictionary at your disposal, in case you need it.

You can also take a picture of some text, and allow the app to translate it for you. Visual text recognition currently works for 45 languages, at the time of writing this article. The app’s design is also really nice and modern, so there are no issues there. This app is also completely free.

Download Yandex Translate

Naver Papago

• Price: Free to download
• In-app purchases: No
• Size: Varies with device
• Google Play rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars

Naver Papago is a translation app with a simplistic design, which is a good thing. This app supports 13 languages, which is not a whole lot compared to some other apps on the list. It does do a great job with those languages, though. The app supports text translation, image translation, voice translation, offline translation, conversation translation, handwriting translation, website translation, Edu, and Papago Mini.

Everything is self-explanatory except the last two translations. ‘Edu’ allows you to take a picture of the passage you want to study, and the app will create ‘My Note’ that you can use to study passages and words. Papago Mini is an in-screen translation when you copy the text in any application. So, you can use this app in a number of different ways, as long as the languages you need are included here.

Download Naver Papago

DeepL Translate

• Price: Free to download
• In-app purchases: No
• Size: Varies with device
• Google Play rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars

DeepL Translate is a translation app with an extremely high rating in the Play Store. It is currently holding a 4.8-star rating, and it can translate between 29 languages. It can translate text, speech, images, and files across those languages. The app also includes a dark mode, which is not something you’ll find in many translation apps.

The app also supports the ‘Quick detection’ feature, which can quickly start translating after the first couple of letters even. DeepL Pro does offer some additional features and options, but you can use this app for free, if you want. For the most part, it works like a charm, and it’s a good competitor to both Google Translate and Microsoft Translator.

Download DeepL Translate

SayHi Translate

• Price: Free to download
• In-app purchases: No
• Size: Varies with device
• Google Play rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars

SayHi Translate is another translation app with a minimalistic design. Many of you have probably heard of it by now, even though it’s not as popular as some other offerings on the list. The app supports translations from a ton of languages, and many of them have dialect support as well.

You can actually alter between male and female voices, for better recognition. The same goes for controlling the rate of speech, you can increase or decrease it. Android Talkback is also supported by the app, by the way. Do note that SayHi Translate does require an Internet connection.

Download SayHi Translate

Scan & Translate

• Price: Free to download
• In-app purchases: $0.99-$29.99
• Size: Varies with device
• Google Play rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars

Scan & Translate: Photo camera is an app that focuses on image translations. It does a really good job, and it can be a great sidekick if you’re traveling. You can simply point the camera function within the app to a text, and the app will do the heavy lifting for you. A ton of languages are supported.

The app will share a translation with the correct pronunciation with you. Text reader OCR scanner tech transforms an image to text on your smartphone. You can translate pictures, jpeg, PDF, and Word files live as well. Scanning handwriting is also a possibility. The app also looks really nice.

Download Scan & Translate

Offline translator S&T

• Price: Free to download
• In-app purchases: $0.99-$9.99
• Size: Varies with device
• Google Play rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars

Offline translator S&T is an offline-only translator, as its name says. This app bases itself on voice translation. All you have to do is download the right offline package for translation, and you’re good, you won’t have to worry about an Internet connection at all. This app has two integrated offline translators, which is why it weighs as much. It comes with both offerings from Google and Huawei.

There is also a built-in offline engine for optical character recognition, for images. It also has a built-in text to speech engine for Huawei and HONOR devices, in case you’re using those. Quite a few languages are at your disposal, so finding the one you need to download shouldn’t be a problem.

Download Offline translator S&T

Dictionary Linguee

• Price: Free to download
• In-app purchases: No
• Size: Varies with device
• Google Play rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars

Dictionary Linguee is another app that is coming from DeepL SE. This app has a rather high rating in the Play Store, and it’s much different than the other one we talked about here. This is basically a super detailed dictionary application, which is something that can come in really handy.

There are a bunch of languages included here, and an editorial dictionary is also included. It is compiled by over 400 lexicographers, and the search field covers to over one billion translations from the Internet. There is also an offline mode available, as you can download editorial dictionaries.

Download Dictionary Linguee

BK Translate

• Price: Free to download
• In-app purchases: No
• Size: Varies with device
• Google Play rating: N/A

BK Translate delivers a ton of different dictionary apps to Android, and down below you’ll find a link to all of them. Look through them, and if you find the one you need, simply download it. There is one general app called ‘Speak and Translate: Translate’, which works really nicely. If you need specific translators or dictionaries, well, look through the rest of the apps.

There is an English – Burmese translator app, English German translator, English Portuguese translator, and more. The list is quite long, Hebrew, Hungarian, Korean, Ukrainian, Russian, and more languages are covered in separate apps. That way, you can download a smaller app and just focus on what you need.

Download BK Translate

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Oxford dictionary adds 'multisexual,' 'sistergirl' and 16 other words related to gender-identity - Fox News - Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) added 18 new words related to gender identity and the LGBTQ community in 2022, including the terms gender-affirming, brotherboy and pangender, according to a new report. 

Over the course of the year, the OED was incrementally updated with over 2,050 words in March, June and September. It is expected to receive several hundred more words by year-end.  

In March, the OED added anti-gay to their myriad of words, accompanied by a definition that reads "opposed or hostile to homosexual people (sometimes specifically gay men) or homosexuality." Anti-homosexual was also added as a subcategory of the word, The Daily Caller found.

GOOGLE APOLOGIZES FOR CONTROVERSIAL DEFINITION OF 'JEW' ON SEARCH ENGINE

The OED also added words less well known to the public - such as pangender, a term used to define a person who either identifies as an unset number of separate identities, moving fluidly between them over time, or identifies as a singular all-encompassing identity. 

Eunoia, which means "beautiful thinking" according to Guinness World Records, is the shortest word in the English language that has all five main vowels. (iStock) (iStock)

Another newly-included word, multisexual, often refers to a person that is attracted to several different individuals with varying gender identities or sexes. 

The word gender also saw several notes added to the definition with new sub-definitions that include gender critical, and gender-affirming. Gender expression and gender presentation were also included under the same definition.

The word teahouse, colloquially used in U.S. slang, was also included. The word refers to a public restroom in which gay men engage or solicit sexual acts from other men. 

MERRIAM-WEBSTER'S 'ANTI-VAXXER' DEFINITION UPDATE SPARKS ALLEGATIONS OF ATTEMPT TO 'REDEFINE' MEANING

Several words were also added that are specific to countries across the world and are not commonly known in the English language. For example, the word Bakla is a term in the Philippines that describes a biological male who identifies as female. Muxe, a word from Mexico which has the same definition, was also added. 

Australian words brotherboy and sistergirl were also added, the former of which refers to a person registered as female at birth that identities with masculine gender expression, and a born male that exhibits traits associated with being feminine in the latter’s case. 

CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY CHANGES DEFINITION OF 'MAN' AND 'WOMAN': '1984 WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE A HOW-TO MANUAL'

Several notable dictionaries have made interesting editorial decisions throughout 2022 regarding their inclusion of new words.

Earlier this month, the OED announced that their official word of 2022 is "goblin mode," a term that refers to a "type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations."

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary selected "gaslighting" as their official word of the year.  

On December 13, Dictionary.com deemed the word "woman" to be the word of the year for 2022, calling it a "prime example of the many gender terms undergoing shifts." 

The site suggested that, "more than ever, we are all faced with questions about who gets to identify as a woman." The word-defining website also indicated unease at being the final arbiter: "The dictionary is not the last word on what defines a woman."

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Fox News’ Scott Whitlock and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report. 

Nikolas Lanum is an associate editor for Fox News Digital.

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What dictionaries have changed the definition of ‘woman’? | Opinion - Deseret News - Dictionary

This year I bought a strange holiday gift for my kids: I gave them dictionaries. More specifically, I gave them dictionaries that were published before the word “woman” was redefined by some dictionary publishers.

This fall, Cambridge University Press redefined woman to include not only “an adult female human being,” but also “an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth (example, ‘Mary is a woman who was assigned male at birth.’).”

Wits quickly supplied additional definitions Cambridge should consider, such as, “duck: a shark who lives and identifies as a duck though they may have been said to have a different species at birth (example, ‘Blue is a duck who was assigned shark at birth.’).”

If we were in the water and someone yelled, “Duck, duck!” we’d turn around to look because ducks are no threat. If someone yelled, “Shark, shark!” we’d get out of the water as fast as possible because sharks are very much a threat. Redefining “duck” to include “shark” would be a corruption of language because it would not allow us to communicate what we actually mean, and also would obscure the potential threat sharks pose. At best the redefinition makes us incoherent; at worst, it results in our harm or death.

“Duck, duck, the pectoral-fin-having kind of duck!”

For women, the conceptual erasure of their material reality has come swiftly, even as their actual material reality so often remains the justification for their abuse. While certain legal fictions have been long accepted in society — for example, it’s unremarkable to call the guardians of an adopted child their mother and father even though they are not biologically related — newer legal fictions are not as innocuous.

Since 2010 in Great Britain, an individual can, under certain circumstances, receive a Gender Recognition Certificate that allows them to change the sex on their government documents. This is “a legal fiction” because the person’s material bodily sex has not changed; only the sex marker on their government documents has.

We know this is a legal fiction even under British law because the older sister of a male heir of a noble peerage (the UK’s system of ranks and titles) cannot use a Gender Recognition Certificate to claim that she is now the true heir because the certificate says she is male. 

The material, biological reality of her sex has not disappeared in actuality. Likewise a male heir cannot lose his noble title if he obtains a certificate that states he is female; his favored male sex can never be taken from him. The government reasoned that “by stating that where a peerage is concerned a transsexual person is considered in his or her birth gender we avoid anomalies of succession.”  

But those are anomalies that would disfavor men, causing them to lose out to women. Unfortunately, the government appears less interested in anomalies that are created by this legal fiction that disfavor women, causing them to lose out to men.

The same week that Cambridge changed its definition, a U.K. judge ruled that the 2018 Gender Representation on Public Boards Act, which mandates certain percentages of women on public boards, included as women not only females but also individuals with Gender Recognition Certificates stating they are female. Thus a public board could be comprised of all biologically male-bodied persons and still fulfill its obligations under the act.

We see the same double standard at work in other recent rulings. Janice Turner of the Times points out, “The U.S. rowing federation has opened its female category to anyone who ‘identifies as a woman.’ (This, remember, is a sport with a huge male-female physical disparity.) But hey, look at new mixed rowing rules. ‘Boat entries in this category must include 50% athletes assigned as female at birth’ — i.e. no extra dudes in your team because it would be unfair to other dudes. How do you define ‘man’? Someone who never loses out.”

I would argue these legal fictions about sex are not just unfair and unsporting, but also in many cases harmful to women. First, how can you possibly organize for women’s rights when the category of women includes biological men? You are reduced to the inanity of our current discourse over “uterus-havers” and “menstruators,” when those neo-categories are wholly incapable of pointing to the human beings living in female bodies. In one fell swoop, you have made women incapable of articulating whose rights need protecting — even though everyone still knows whose rights are being lost. Didn’t we have an unambiguous word for those human beings? Well, we used to.

Worse, you prevent women from protecting themselves. Our foremothers bequeathed us a variety of ways of detecting, avoiding and mollifying threatening males. One of the major breakthroughs in women’s rights was the right to single-sex spaces, such as women’s restrooms. An extension of this right was the Geneva Convention’s upholding the right for women prisoners to be held in single-sex facilities. 

Now, however, we have women accosted by men in women’s restrooms, and women who dare say anything are too often vilified for calling them biologically male. Even worse, we have had the most vulnerable women — women prisoners — trapped in cells with biological males, which has already resulted in physical abuse and allegations of rape.

When the ducks cannot say “That’s a shark,” or women can’t say male, you have stripped from them the ability to even identify those who may harm them. That we have so corrupted our language to the favor of men, by asserting that biological males can be “women” and must be called “women” if that is what men want, is deeply wrong.

I, for one, will not bend the knee to this blatant misogyny, so I’m buying those uncorrupted dictionaries while they still exist. Just as the Amish have kept alive their own dialect of English, so dissenters from this conceptual mischief must do the same, and pass uncorrupted language on to those who follow them. For women and for men who value and respect women, the stakes are just too high for complacency. 

Valerie M. Hudson is a university distinguished professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and a Deseret News contributor. Her views are her own.

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Foreign influence Part 1: Lost in translation, Hong Kong's weird and wonderful street names - Hong Kong Free Press - Translation

By Diana Pang

There are two different English names near Chung Ying Street (中英街, China England Street), a historical location on the Hong Kong—mainland China border. Car Park Street, a translation of the Chinese name (車坪街), can be seen on the old T-shaped sign while the newer sign reads Che Ping Street, the transliteration of the Cantonese. So what happened there?

From right to left: The traditional way of writing Chinese can be seen on the 1930s signage on the right. Photo: Diana Pang.

The street was the terminus of the Kowloon–Canton Railway’s short-lived Sha Tau Kok branch in the early 20th century. Sometime after the line ceased operation in 1928, the street was renamed.

While there appears to be no records about the name change, it begs the question: why are some street names converted semantically and others phonetically?

Not that kind of junk

Street names are bilingual in Hong Kong but the conversion between English and Chinese names is often confusing. Mistranslations and ill-sounding transliterations sometimes lead to hilarity.

The Geographical Place Names Board, founded to clean up inauspicious or eyebrow-raising place names, famously rebranded the place now called Tseung Kwan O (將軍澳) in the 1980s. When the British first surveyed the area, it was named Junk Bay after the junk boats spotted nearby.

With landfills and ship-breaking operations nearby, the name caused some problems during the new town’s development as it was taken to refer to “junk” or trash. A transliteration of its Chinese name was then given to the area, renaming it Tseung Kwan O.

Wan King Path, Sai Kung. Photo: Googlemaps.

Despite the committee’s efforts to eradicate unfortunate-sounding names, it is unclear how Wan King Path (灣景街, waan1 ging2 gaai1, ‘Bay View Path’) in Sai Kung managed to survive the purge in the 1990s.

One way or another

In many East Asian countries such as China, South Korea, and Japan, street names are often romanised versions of their native languages. Unlike our neighbours, Hong Kong’s street names are sometimes not merely transliterations between English and Cantonese.

Che Ping Street on the 1965 Hong Kong & New Territories Survey Map. Photo: HK Historical Maps.

Some are translated (e.g. Hospital Road ↔ 醫院道) and others are a mix of transliteration and translation, often with numbers or cardinal directions (e.g. Yee Kuk West Street ↔ 醫局西街). There are also streets where their bilingual names are either mistranslated or seem to have no relation to each other (e.g. Stewart Terrace ↔ 十間, “Ten Units”).

Transliteration

Most street names in Hong Kong are transliterations between Cantonese and English. As a former British colony with fewer than five per cent of the people being primary English speakers, similar sounds are helpful for communication between races.

Ling Daoyang 凌道揚 (L), a renowned Chinese agronomist who co-founded The Chinese University of Hong Kong. And Tan Jat Min (R), former Indonesian-born Hakka honorary treasurer of the Housing Society.

In a few rare cases, street names are transliterated from Chinese languages other than Cantonese. Daoyang Road (道揚道 dou6 joeng4 dou6) and Jat Min Chuen Street (乙明村街 jyut3 ming4 cyun1 gaai1) took their names from notable Chinese figures with Mandarin and Hakka names.

Several streets have transliterations that do not even sound Cantonese or Mandarin. Take a walk around the Yau Tsim Mong area and you will find many streets named after different Chinese cities. Postal Romanisation is used in some streets (e.g. Peking Street), where the transliteration is neither Cantonese- nor Mandarin-sounding. These old Chinese place names were replaced by Mandarin pinyin in the 1950s.

Rednaxela Terrace. Photo: Wikicommons.

Linguistic differences between English and Chinese pronunciations and writing systems are evident in some transliterations. A common misreading of the silent “h” is found in Chinese transliterations of Bonham, Chatham, Wyndham, etc., where “ham” is rendered as 「咸」(haam4). In one particular case, differences in English and Chinese writing systems resulted in a unique name. A Chinese clerk accidentally transposed “Alexander Terrace,” its intended name, as Rednaxela Terrace because Chinese was written from right to left at the time. The name stuck and became a feature of Mid-Levels.

Translation

The Hong Kong government and property developers have been responsible for naming and translating street names since 1842. To no one’s surprise, translations are not always accurate. Some are partly translated, like Princess Margaret Road (公主道), where Margaret was omitted in the Chinese name. Others are downright incorrect, such as Pine Street (杉樹街) and Fir Street (松樹街), in which their Chinese translations were erroneously swapped.

Adding to the confusion are mistranslations of polysemes (words with multiple meanings). Constructed in the early 1840s, Queen’s Road was named after Queen Victoria and remains a key thoroughfare to this day. However, instead of referring to the sovereign ruler (女皇), the Chinese name was mistranslated as queen consort  (皇后), the wife of a King.

Pound Lane, Po Hing Fong in Sheung Wan. Photo: Wikicommons.

Other examples of mistranslated polysemes include:

• Pound Lane (磅巷) — named after an animal shelter nearby, was mistaken for a unit of measurement
• Power Street (大強街) — named after a power station, but mistaken for strength
• Spring Garden Lane (春園街) — named after a garden with a spring fountain, but mistaken for “spring” (the season).

Nuances in the Chinese language can be spotted in some street names. “Dock” in Chinese is「船塢」 (syun4 ou3), yet the Chinese name for Dock Street (船澳街), named after the Kowloon Docks is a meaningless homophone (words with the same pronunciation but different meanings) of「船塢」(syun4 ou3).

The translation of Ice House Street into ‘Snow Factory Street’ in Chinese may seem baffling to some, but this is due to a particular nuance in Cantonese. Ice (冰) and snow (雪) were interchangeable in Cantonese. For example, refrigerator in Cantonese means ‘snow cabinet’ (雪櫃) whereas it is ‘ice box’ (冰箱) in Mandarin. Named after the building that stored ice shipped from North America in the 1840s, ice was never manufactured on Ice House Street.

Ones that bear no relations

Wishful thinking

To convey good wishes for the neighbourhoods, the government and property developers often christen streets with auspicious names in Chinese that have no linguistic relation to their English counterparts. 

The Governor’s Walk, translated into “Together Happy Walk”「同樂徑, was taken from the Chinese saying「官民同樂」which means joy “shared between rulers and people.”

Governor’s Walk. PhotoL Ben Dalton via Flickr CC2.0.

Mong Kok is another prime example. The former coastal region was named after the overgrown silvergrass found in the area 「芒角」(mong4 gok3, ‘corner of silvergrass’).

When the government reclaimed the bay and developed the area in the early 1900s, the Chinese name was renamed to its current appellation [旺角」(wong6 gok3) which means “Prosperity Point.” The English name was never updated. With its extremely high population density of 130,000 per square kilometre, perhaps the name did deliver.

Colonial imposition

Like other then-colonies, many places and streets in Hong Kong were named after colonial officials. Rather than being just transliterations from English, their Chinese names often tell a different story.

Upside Down: South-up Canton Coastal Map showing Hong Kong dated 1595 (Ming Dynasty). The name ‘Hong Kong’, highlighted in pink, can be seen in the present-day Aberdeen/Ap Lei Chau area.

Known for its fishing village, not many people know that Aberdeen is the “original Hong Kong.” Named after George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, who played a pivotal role in the Opium Wars leading to the cession of Hong Kong, Aberdeen’s Chinese name 「香港仔」(hoeng1 gong2 zai2, ‘Little Hong Kong’), gave Hong Kong its name. When the British landed near Aberdeen in the early 19th century, they mistook the name of the village “Hong Kong” for that of the entire territory – and the rest was history.

Some colonial street names were decolonised even before the Handover. Jervois Street was named after British General William Jervois, who was in charge of rebuilding Sheung Wan after the devastating fire of 1851. Originally transliterated to「乍畏街」(zaa3 wai3 gaai1), 「乍畏」was considered inauspicious as it means “dread” in Chinese. The Chinese name was renamed to「蘇杭街」(sou1 hong4 gaai1, “Suzhou Hangzhou Street”) in 1978 as most of the shops along it sold textiles from Suzhou and Hangzhou.

Some colonial place names with different Chinese and English interpretations remain a mystery to this date. Whoever Penny’s Bay (竹篙灣, “Bamboo Pole Bay”) was named for would not be pleased to know that it would become a dreaded Covid quarantine facility.

Colourful highways

Some highway names have unusual origins. Rather than being named after someone called Twisk, Route Twisk (荃錦公路) came from the initials of the two places it links: Tsuen Wan (TW) and Shek Kong (SK). The origin of the ‘i’ in the middle has been contested — some claimed that it refers to “intersection” while others claimed that it was a misprint of “Route TW/SK.” In Chinese, the highway means Tsuen Wan – Kam Tin Route (Kam Tin is an area next to Shek Kong).

Hiram’s Highway (西貢公路), connecting Sai Kung to Clear Water Bay, was named after Major John Wynne-Potts who expanded the road built by the Japanese military during World War II. So, where did Hiram come from? At that time, an American tinned sausage brand called Hiram K. Potts was supplied to the British army in large quantities as military rations. The sausages were hated by everyone, but Major Wynne-Potts gladly accepted them from his colleagues in exchange for other food. Due to the brand of cans bearing his surname Potts, he became nicknamed Hiram over time. The anecdote is lost in its Chinese name as it only refers to Sai Kung Highway with no mention of said sausage.

Chef’s kisses

In spite of the numerous bizarre street name conversions, there are a few that deserve a special mention. A few streets such as Link Road (連道, lin4 dou6) and Welfare Road (惠福道, wai6 fuk1 dou6) managed to achieve the near-impossible by matching their English and Chinese names both phonetically and semantically.

In Aldrich Street’s translation story, English and Cantonese are creatively intertwined. Situated in Aldrich Bay, the area is named after Colonel Edward Aldrich, who was responsible for formulating the British defence plan and was known for his remarkable effectiveness in rectifying military discipline. When the bay was named after him in 1845, “Aldrich” was converted to 「愛秩序」(ngoi3 dit6 zeoi6) in Chinese, which means  “loving discipline” and its Cantonese transliteration.

Eclectic linguistic journey

Linguistic relationships between Hong Kong’s bilingual street names are weird and wonderful. There are times when mistranslations or ill-sounding transliterations lead to hilarious sightings, and there are streets with bilingual names that are completely unrelated. Their Chinese names, however, often tell a different story. Some managed to preserve their indigenous names, while others were shaped by the socio-cultural context of their colonial nomenclature. 

Explore the map below by hovering on different streets to see how their bilingual street names are related.

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Foreign influence Part 1: Lost in translation, Hong Kong's weird and wonderful street names - Hong Kong Free Press - Translation

By Diana Pang

There are two different English names near Chung Ying Street (中英街, China England Street), a historical location on the Hong Kong—mainland China border. Car Park Street, a translation of the Chinese name (車坪街), can be seen on the old T-shaped sign while the newer sign reads Che Ping Street, the transliteration of the Cantonese. So what happened there?

From right to left: The traditional way of writing Chinese can be seen on the 1930s signage on the right. Photo: Diana Pang.

The street was the terminus of the Kowloon–Canton Railway’s short-lived Sha Tau Kok branch in the early 20th century. Sometime after the line ceased operation in 1928, the street was renamed.

While there appears to be no records about the name change, it begs the question: why are some street names converted semantically and others phonetically?

Not that kind of junk

Street names are bilingual in Hong Kong but the conversion between English and Chinese names is often confusing. Mistranslations and ill-sounding transliterations sometimes lead to hilarity.

The Geographical Place Names Board, founded to clean up inauspicious or eyebrow-raising place names, famously rebranded the place now called Tseung Kwan O (將軍澳) in the 1980s. When the British first surveyed the area, it was named Junk Bay after the junk boats spotted nearby.

With landfills and ship-breaking operations nearby, the name caused some problems during the new town’s development as it was taken to refer to “junk” or trash. A transliteration of its Chinese name was then given to the area, renaming it Tseung Kwan O.

Wan King Path, Sai Kung. Photo: Googlemaps.

Despite the committee’s efforts to eradicate unfortunate-sounding names, it is unclear how Wan King Path (灣景街, waan1 ging2 gaai1, ‘Bay View Path’) in Sai Kung managed to survive the purge in the 1990s.

One way or another

In many East Asian countries such as China, South Korea, and Japan, street names are often romanised versions of their native languages. Unlike our neighbours, Hong Kong’s street names are sometimes not merely transliterations between English and Cantonese.

Che Ping Street on the 1965 Hong Kong & New Territories Survey Map. Photo: HK Historical Maps.

Some are translated (e.g. Hospital Road ↔ 醫院道) and others are a mix of transliteration and translation, often with numbers or cardinal directions (e.g. Yee Kuk West Street ↔ 醫局西街). There are also streets where their bilingual names are either mistranslated or seem to have no relation to each other (e.g. Stewart Terrace ↔ 十間, “Ten Units”).

Transliteration

Most street names in Hong Kong are transliterations between Cantonese and English. As a former British colony with fewer than five per cent of the people being primary English speakers, similar sounds are helpful for communication between races.

Ling Daoyang 凌道揚 (L), a renowned Chinese agronomist who co-founded The Chinese University of Hong Kong. And Tan Jat Min (R), former Indonesian-born Hakka honorary treasurer of the Housing Society.

In a few rare cases, street names are transliterated from Chinese languages other than Cantonese. Daoyang Road (道揚道 dou6 joeng4 dou6) and Jat Min Chuen Street (乙明村街 jyut3 ming4 cyun1 gaai1) took their names from notable Chinese figures with Mandarin and Hakka names.

Several streets have transliterations that do not even sound Cantonese or Mandarin. Take a walk around the Yau Tsim Mong area and you will find many streets named after different Chinese cities. Postal Romanisation is used in some streets (e.g. Peking Street), where the transliteration is neither Cantonese- nor Mandarin-sounding. These old Chinese place names were replaced by Mandarin pinyin in the 1950s.

Rednaxela Terrace. Photo: Wikicommons.

Linguistic differences between English and Chinese pronunciations and writing systems are evident in some transliterations. A common misreading of the silent “h” is found in Chinese transliterations of Bonham, Chatham, Wyndham, etc., where “ham” is rendered as 「咸」(haam4). In one particular case, differences in English and Chinese writing systems resulted in a unique name. A Chinese clerk accidentally transposed “Alexander Terrace,” its intended name, as Rednaxela Terrace because Chinese was written from right to left at the time. The name stuck and became a feature of Mid-Levels.

Translation

The Hong Kong government and property developers have been responsible for naming and translating street names since 1842. To no one’s surprise, translations are not always accurate. Some are partly translated, like Princess Margaret Road (公主道), where Margaret was omitted in the Chinese name. Others are downright incorrect, such as Pine Street (杉樹街) and Fir Street (松樹街), in which their Chinese translations were erroneously swapped.

Adding to the confusion are mistranslations of polysemes (words with multiple meanings). Constructed in the early 1840s, Queen’s Road was named after Queen Victoria and remains a key thoroughfare to this day. However, instead of referring to the sovereign ruler (女皇), the Chinese name was mistranslated as queen consort  (皇后), the wife of a King.

Pound Lane, Po Hing Fong in Sheung Wan. Photo: Wikicommons.

Other examples of mistranslated polysemes include:

• Pound Lane (磅巷) — named after an animal shelter nearby, was mistaken for a unit of measurement
• Power Street (大強街) — named after a power station, but mistaken for strength
• Spring Garden Lane (春園街) — named after a garden with a spring fountain, but mistaken for “spring” (the season).

Nuances in the Chinese language can be spotted in some street names. “Dock” in Chinese is「船塢」 (syun4 ou3), yet the Chinese name for Dock Street (船澳街), named after the Kowloon Docks is a meaningless homophone (words with the same pronunciation but different meanings) of「船塢」(syun4 ou3).

The translation of Ice House Street into ‘Snow Factory Street’ in Chinese may seem baffling to some, but this is due to a particular nuance in Cantonese. Ice (冰) and snow (雪) were interchangeable in Cantonese. For example, refrigerator in Cantonese means ‘snow cabinet’ (雪櫃) whereas it is ‘ice box’ (冰箱) in Mandarin. Named after the building that stored ice shipped from North America in the 1840s, ice was never manufactured on Ice House Street.

Ones that bear no relations

Wishful thinking

To convey good wishes for the neighbourhoods, the government and property developers often christen streets with auspicious names in Chinese that have no linguistic relation to their English counterparts. 

The Governor’s Walk, translated into “Together Happy Walk”「同樂徑, was taken from the Chinese saying「官民同樂」which means joy “shared between rulers and people.”

Governor’s Walk. PhotoL Ben Dalton via Flickr CC2.0.

Mong Kok is another prime example. The former coastal region was named after the overgrown silvergrass found in the area 「芒角」(mong4 gok3, ‘corner of silvergrass’).

When the government reclaimed the bay and developed the area in the early 1900s, the Chinese name was renamed to its current appellation [旺角」(wong6 gok3) which means “Prosperity Point.” The English name was never updated. With its extremely high population density of 130,000 per square kilometre, perhaps the name did deliver.

Colonial imposition

Like other then-colonies, many places and streets in Hong Kong were named after colonial officials. Rather than being just transliterations from English, their Chinese names often tell a different story.

Upside Down: South-up Canton Coastal Map showing Hong Kong dated 1595 (Ming Dynasty). The name ‘Hong Kong’, highlighted in pink, can be seen in the present-day Aberdeen/Ap Lei Chau area.

Known for its fishing village, not many people know that Aberdeen is the “original Hong Kong.” Named after George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, who played a pivotal role in the Opium Wars leading to the cession of Hong Kong, Aberdeen’s Chinese name 「香港仔」(hoeng1 gong2 zai2, ‘Little Hong Kong’), gave Hong Kong its name. When the British landed near Aberdeen in the early 19th century, they mistook the name of the village “Hong Kong” for that of the entire territory – and the rest was history.

Some colonial street names were decolonised even before the Handover. Jervois Street was named after British General William Jervois, who was in charge of rebuilding Sheung Wan after the devastating fire of 1851. Originally transliterated to「乍畏街」(zaa3 wai3 gaai1), 「乍畏」was considered inauspicious as it means “dread” in Chinese. The Chinese name was renamed to「蘇杭街」(sou1 hong4 gaai1, “Suzhou Hangzhou Street”) in 1978 as most of the shops along it sold textiles from Suzhou and Hangzhou.

Some colonial place names with different Chinese and English interpretations remain a mystery to this date. Whoever Penny’s Bay (竹篙灣, “Bamboo Pole Bay”) was named for would not be pleased to know that it would become a dreaded Covid quarantine facility.

Colourful highways

Some highway names have unusual origins. Rather than being named after someone called Twisk, Route Twisk (荃錦公路) came from the initials of the two places it links: Tsuen Wan (TW) and Shek Kong (SK). The origin of the ‘i’ in the middle has been contested — some claimed that it refers to “intersection” while others claimed that it was a misprint of “Route TW/SK.” In Chinese, the highway means Tsuen Wan – Kam Tin Route (Kam Tin is an area next to Shek Kong).

Hiram’s Highway (西貢公路), connecting Sai Kung to Clear Water Bay, was named after Major John Wynne-Potts who expanded the road built by the Japanese military during World War II. So, where did Hiram come from? At that time, an American tinned sausage brand called Hiram K. Potts was supplied to the British army in large quantities as military rations. The sausages were hated by everyone, but Major Wynne-Potts gladly accepted them from his colleagues in exchange for other food. Due to the brand of cans bearing his surname Potts, he became nicknamed Hiram over time. The anecdote is lost in its Chinese name as it only refers to Sai Kung Highway with no mention of said sausage.

Chef’s kisses

In spite of the numerous bizarre street name conversions, there are a few that deserve a special mention. A few streets such as Link Road (連道, lin4 dou6) and Welfare Road (惠福道, wai6 fuk1 dou6) managed to achieve the near-impossible by matching their English and Chinese names both phonetically and semantically.

In Aldrich Street’s translation story, English and Cantonese are creatively intertwined. Situated in Aldrich Bay, the area is named after Colonel Edward Aldrich, who was responsible for formulating the British defence plan and was known for his remarkable effectiveness in rectifying military discipline. When the bay was named after him in 1845, “Aldrich” was converted to 「愛秩序」(ngoi3 dit6 zeoi6) in Chinese, which means  “loving discipline” and its Cantonese transliteration.

Eclectic linguistic journey

Linguistic relationships between Hong Kong’s bilingual street names are weird and wonderful. There are times when mistranslations or ill-sounding transliterations lead to hilarious sightings, and there are streets with bilingual names that are completely unrelated. Their Chinese names, however, often tell a different story. Some managed to preserve their indigenous names, while others were shaped by the socio-cultural context of their colonial nomenclature. 

Explore the map below by hovering on different streets to see how their bilingual street names are related.

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No hablo Español? Don't rely on Google Translate to save you - Android Authority - Translation

As the cold winter began to grip Canada this year, my partner and I decided to escape the snowy weather and flee to her homeland in Mexico for a few weeks. I have been learning Spanish through Memrise for the past few months, which has taught me the basics of greeting others and ordering another beer, but I am far from fluent. Thankfully, my fluency in French is helping me pick things up quicker due to the languages’ similarities, but I usually rely on my partner, who is a native speaker, to help translate the rest. For this trip, though, I wanted to give her a break and be more self-reliant. So I downloaded the Google Translate app as my main companion and aid in navigating the local language for this journey.

See also: 10 best Spanish to English dictionaries and phrasebooks for Android

Translate’s proposed features seemed promising. “Oh, it will be easy to translate entire conversations, and I bet people will be receptive to it,” I thought. Boy, was I wrong. After using Google Translate while traveling, I can attest to some crucial limitations. May this serve as a warning to any tourists thinking they can get by solely using the app without at least some knowledge of the local language.

Have you ever used Google Translate when traveling in a foreign country?

60 votes

Offline use is severely limited

Adam Birney / Android Authority

Let’s start with the biggest Google Translate limitation while traveling. The app’s description states that “you can download languages onto your device,” which supposedly “lets you translate them without an internet connection.” Great, so if I download Spanish before flying off, I should be able to use all of the translation features offline, right? Wrong. Of all the features that Google translate offers, only one worked for me offline: basic text translation. The conversation, camera, and audio modes all required an active connection.

Of all the features that Google translate offers, only basic text translation worked for me offline.

Google Translate is supposed to support offline camera lens translations, but I never once got it to work during my trip. Despite downloading both English and Spanish beforehand and granting all the relevant permissions, I always encountered an error message when disconnected from the internet. To be clear, offline camera translation seems to work for most users — my Android Authority colleagues confirmed that on their devices — but judging by many reviews on the Google Play store, I’m not the only one who keeps getting the error message.

The introduction of Google Lens to replace Google Translate’s previous photo mode might be responsible for this bug, as that update only rolled out a month ago. Many users have also noted that you can no longer select text to translate word by word; Lens will just automatically translate an entire page. In its current buggy state, it was a letdown that this offline selling point never worked for me. Instead, turning my data on and off in each instance (at exorbitant roaming rates) became a nuisance, given that Wi-Fi was scarce.

Turning my data on and off in each instance became a nuisance, given that Wi-Fi was scarce.

With only typed text translation working offline, the whole prospect of downloading a language became rather redundant. The basic text translation is handy in a pinch if you forget one or two words. But I had already saved most of the short phrases I knew I’d use, such as greetings or asking where the bathroom is, to my favorites beforehand. I did so because I anticipated referencing them offline.

More importantly, the other features are the ones I would imagine rural travelers relying on more. For example, I depended on Google Lens to translate signage, know what to order on a menu at a restaurant, or read plaques within local museums. Conversation mode would’ve been great when communicating with locals too; instead, typing text and handing the phone back and forth was nowhere near as efficient or intuitive as the microphone.

No plus-ones at Google Translate

When you are online, the conversation feature works pretty well for one-on-one interactions. It has a friendly greeting message you can show to whomever you wish to speak with. The microphone didn’t always catch every word in my interactions, and I found the slower each of us spoke, the more accurate it was. But as soon as I threw a third person into that mix, everything fell apart.

In larger group settings, using this conversation mode really slowed down social interactions’ pace. If you’ve ever been in the trenches of a Mexican family gathering, you’ll know how fast they can rapidly poke fun at one another. But because the conversation mode is only designed for two people, it doesn’t give you an opening to engage with a party. Combined with the microphone’s delicacy, multiple people speaking simultaneously all but ensure translations get jumbled.

Because the conversation mode only works between two people, it doesn't let you engage with a larger group.

When Google Translate comes short during a conversation, it can feel like an imposition to ask others to repeat themselves or slow down while they are having fun. As such, I always found myself a few minutes behind the conversation, always catching up. I did try just using the central microphone instead of the conversation mode, thinking I could just parse the transcript to the relevant speaker myself. But that came out even more disorganized. Plus, if you’re not using the feature with someone else, it can look like you’re just on your phone and not paying attention.

Ultimately, my partner was much more reliable in keeping me up to speed. Unlike Google Translate, she didn’t have to translate every single word literally and could just give me the gist of what was being said so I could follow along.

Growing pains for Google Translate

The universal translator (UT) is a fictional device from Star Trek, used to used to decipher and interpret alien languages into the native language of the user.

You would expect translating between languages to be easy once you have downloaded the right dictionaries. Just scan or type the word, find the matching one in the other language, and then output a translation one by one. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite so simple. Some things work great when you’re connected, but if you venture outside of civilization, nearly all the language features are left by the wayside.

Google released a big update to the Translate app in November that changed a lot of the UI and replaced the camera translation with Google Lens. Users had hoped this would bring improvements, but personally, all I got were bugs. Hopefully, these are just growing pains that Google can learn from and fix.

Google likes to boast about having over 100 languages at your fingertips, but we are far from Star Trek levels of real-time translation.

In the app’s current state, my experience while traveling abroad was pretty underwhelming. Google likes to boast about having access to over 100 languages at your fingertips. Still, that promise fell short when I realized all the more helpful things depended on Wi-Fi or data, which can be scarce and expensive in a foreign country.

Even when connected, translating things like airport announcements with the microphone was impossible. Granted, that could be more due to the quality of the speakers, but my ears, and brain, were ultimately more reliable than my phone. We are far from Star Trek levels of real-time translation.

Learning the basics of a language can go a long way. Don't rely on Google to speak the language for you.

Instead, I learned it pays to know the basics of the language for yourself. Learning social introductions, numbers, and the names of destinations doesn’t take much effort and can go a long way. Don’t rely on Google to speak the language for you. If you are lucky enough to have a travel companion that can fill in the missing gaps, that’s a far better service than Google Translate could ever hope to be.

Even with advances in AI learning, humans are still better at understanding context and communicating the main point efficiently. In comparison, Google tries to translate each word individually and produces errors if it doesn’t catch everything. But who knows? Maybe one day, we will have automated real-time multi-lingual translations between multiple people like Google promised during I/O earlier this year (see the video below). By the looks of it, however, that day is still far off.

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