One of the main concerns of traveling is the language barrier. Thankfully, technology can help and it’s available in your smartphone.
Google Translate can act as a crude translation tool for when you need to convey basic words, such as buying food or asking for directions.
However, nothing beats the services of a Freelance French translator when you want to experience the best of France has to offer.
Regardless, here are tips on how you can maximize Google Translate
Offline Mode
Google Translate can work even when you don’t have an internet connection. To do this, you can download language packs so you can be ready.
The app has NMT, or neural machine translation which can convert whole sentences instead of just words. To download the offline pack, go to Languages and tap the down arrow icon of the language of your choice.
Conversation Mode
You can get your mobile to translate languages via conversation mode. It uses the mic to try and convert the words in real time.
To do this, tap the red mic icon and the app will go to work. If you look at the screen the words it picks up will be converted, conversation style.
Save Phrases and Words
You no longer will have to buy a language pair book to get the most-used words and phrases. Thanks to Google Translate, you can pick them ahead of time and save them in your phone.
To do this, say the phrase or word you’ll be using often and tap on the star icon on the right side. The star will turn yellow, which means it’s saved on your list.
Dictionary Mode
Lastly, you can get dictionary meanings in your preferred language pair by a simple tap of the button. The app works as a handy thesaurus and pocket dictionary in a pinch.
