What is Google Translate?
Google Translate is a free automated multilingual software tool. It can translate sentences, text, words, speech, images, and numbers into many different languages from all over the world. Users can type, speak, or paste the text and Google Translate will provide the service instantly. It is mainly used to learn new languages, communicate, and understand content in different languages. The software of Google Translate released on 28 April 2006 by Google. Google Translator can translate more than a hundred languages from all over the world.
The Google translator can be easily used via a web browser, mobile app, and API. It provides a web interface and an application programming interface that helps developers build browser extensions and software applications. The service uses machine learning as well as human volunteers for certain language translations, to make sure the accurate translations. Over 500 million users every day use the service of Google Translator. It is an entire population of Europe. It’s widely used for communication, language learning, and understanding content in different languages.
When Google Translate was found?
The concept for Google Translate was originated by the co-founder of Google “Sergey Brin” in 2004 when he got irritated by the interpretation program the organization was permitting. Because it was providing the wrong interpretation of the foreign language email. Which was not accurate and did not make sense.
The History of Google Translate:
Google Translate is a great tool for communicating with different language people across countries. The history of Google Translate has a fascinating journey along with different challenges and innovations.
Google Translate originally released in 2006. At that time it launched as a statistical machine translation service. It is used to analyze large amounts of text in different languages to provide the most accurate result. It initially provided translation of English, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian languages.
Before translating the text into the required language, the SMT used to translate it into English. Due to the many translations process the SMT was not able to provide accurate results without grammar mistakes.
In 2010, Google presented a Google Translate for Android application and an IOS variant for Apple items in February 2011. Ut was integrated into the browser as “Chrome” in the same year. It helped Google Translate to automatically recognize words from images and provide accurate pronunciations of translated text.
In 2014, Google introduced the word lens to enhance the quality of voice and visual interpretation. It helped in providing the interpretation in different languages and to scan text and images instantly.
In 2016, Google marked a shift and presented the neural machine translation. It uses the “deep learning algorithm” which makes it easier to provide a translation of whole sentences at once without grammar mistakes.
However, Google keeps improving its artificial intelligence and machine learning to make the more accurate translation.
Functions of Google Translate:
Google Translation provides various functions that help users to translate and understand text in different languages. Find some of its key functions-
1. Text Translation:
It provides the translation of written words and text in different languages such as English, Chinese, Arabic, Korean languages and more.
2. Website Translation:
Google can even provide the translation of a whole website from one language to another. It makes the online content accessible for users who speak different languages.
3. Document Translation:
It offers the translation of various document formats such as .doc, .odf, .pdf, etc.
4. Speech Translation:
It provides the translation of real-time spoken language. It allows its user to speak into the microphone. And it will display a translation on the screen or read it.
5. Image Translation:
This function finds the text from an image and provides the accurate pronunciations of translated text in required languages.
6. Hand Written Translation:
This function of Google Translate offers the translation of handwritten text into the desired language.
7. Mobile App Translation:
It is the new function named “Tap to Translate”. It provides instant translation without exiting or switching any open application.
Google Translate Features:
1. Web Interface:
The web interface of Google Translate provides translation for sentences, text, words, speech, images, and numbers in so many different languages from all over the world. Users can easily access the web interface for language translation by visiting translate.google.com. It allows its user to enter text into the text box for desired translation with an option to select the target language. Users can even select to translate entire web pages by typing the URL of the website into the text box. Additionally, it has various settings and features, such as mobile app translation, text and image translation, speech translation, document translation, and more.
2. Mobile App:
In 2010, Google released the Google Translate app for Android and iOS. This feature of Google Translate provides the interpretation of 133 languages. It provides the translation for the text of an image in 37 languages, 32 language translations for “conversation mode” and 27 language translations for live video imagery. It allows users to communicate with people of different languages fluently.
3. API:
Google offers the Google Translate API service. It was released for software developers. It allows developers to build translation abilities into their applications. This allows automatic translation of text from one language to another. It helps the developers in creating multilingual applications without developing their translation algorithms from scratch.
4. Browser Integration:
Google Translate is accessible in some web browsers as by default extension. You can access the translation service by just doing a right click. It also allows automatic webpage translation.
5. Google Assistant:
Google Translate also features the translation for Google Assistant devices like Google Nest and Pixel Buds.
When to use Google Translate:
Google Translate can be for instant translations that may not essentially be accurate. It is great for translating short text in your desired language that lets you understand what it says. Google Translate works efficiently to provide the general meaning of the text with fair accurate results. It doesn’t mean the exact result. If we talk about the accurate result nothing can beat the human translator.
When to not use Google Translate:
While the machine learning algorithm of Google Translator helps provide more accurate results. Still, it cannot provide the most accurate and efficient result as of a real human translation. Here we have mentioned the situations when you should not use Google translate.
1. For Replicating Tone and Style
n blogs, academic essays, articles, journals, or some other type of text, we often find different tones and styles. Some blogs might have a serious tone and some might have a quirky and funny tone. It cannot replicate by Google. If you use Google Translate to replicate tone and style, it will make your document sound flat and empty.
Writing styles and tones are typically there in papers and poetic texts. It is quite challenging for Google Translate to provide accurate translations without losing the significance meaning and true essence behind the words.
2. For Understanding Humans Culture:
The machine learning algorithm of Google Translator cannot understand human culture and its unique styles. It cannot provide the actual significance and meaning of different human cultures of the world.
3. For finding the true meaning of words and context:
Sometimes, one word has multiple meanings in different contexts. It can be a task for Google Translate to find the actual meaning of that particular context. Google Translate cannot find the true meaning of words and context.
Conclusion
Google Translate is a free automated multilingual software tool. It is used to provide a translation of a text, website, or document from one language to another. Google’s translation service keeps enhancing its capacity to provide more accurate translations. But it seems like they have a very long way to provide the most accurate and efficient result as of a real human translator. Here we have mentioned all the detailed information about Google Translator. It includes its meaning, history, functions, and features.