The Google Translate Android app has been gradually getting better and better. In addition to straight-up translations it also includes a conversation mode, handwriting recognition, voice dictation, and most recently character recognition, or OCR. If you’re learning Chinese then you’ve most likely already heard of Hanping Chinese Camera and Pleco OCR, both provide very good text recognition implementations, but how does this free offering from Google stack up? Show
To access the OCR functionality in Google Translate first launch the app, then select the target language at the top right of the screen followed by pressing the camera button located at the bottom right. The bottom half of the screen will turn into a camera window. It’s not necessary to select the source language as this will be auto-detected, but if you’ll also be typing during your translating session then it couldn’t hurt. Position the camera over some Chinese text then press the camera button at the bottom. The photo will be captured and after a few moments characters should become grouped together into words by a light grey background. To translate a word use your finger to highlight it, if it’s recognised then the translation will be displayed above the camera window. Press the arrow to the right of the translated word to view a more detailed definition along with the Pinyin. The flaws for using this as a serious study tool become apparent almost immediately, most notably that the phonetics for the currently selected word aren’t displayed anywhere except the full dictionary entry which requires clicking out of OCR mode. After you move from OCR mode to the dictionary, there’s no way to get back to your already captured image and it’s lost forever. Of course you could just capture it again, but that’s hardly ideal if you want the Pinyin for more than a few words. Text recognition is also only available for horizontally aligned text, ruling out the use of this tool for a large portion of Chinese language books. Regardless of any lacking features, there’s no arguing that for free this is a great tool. Even if you’ve already invested in Hanping Chinese Camera or Pleco OCR then it’s still worth having around. As it’s a Google app the text recognition engine is most likely being constantly updated (captured images are sent to Google for processing) which means it’ll keep getting better. Interestingly, while testing I did run into a few words that used slightly non-standard or modified fonts (usually on the covers of books) that Google Translate handled quickly but that took a lot of fine tuning in the other apps. Google Translate is available for free from Google Play. Translate between up to 133 languages. Feature support varies by language: Permissions notice: Translations between the following languages are supported: What’s New• Several bug fixes and usability improvements Ratings and Reviews4.1 out of 5 1.8K Ratings
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The removal of scan, pause translation and the send to home bug for image translation
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More By This DeveloperYou Might Also LikeHow do I translate a picture from Chinese to English?You basically press Hivision in the top right corner of the camera and press translate. Then you can choose the language to translate from chinese to english. Just put the picture under the phone then it will translate for you. Can you translate the picture below from Chinese to English?
Is there any free app to translate from Chinese to English?The translation functions via clicking on your taken picture with characters inside your installed google translate app. Of course it is free to install. I tested it with from Chinese to English and it works very well. 2. Microsoft Translator Similar functionality to google. Works like a charm. 3. Waygo
Is there a good Chinese to English dictionary available on Play Store?Not as good as Google and Microsoft, but a bit more specialized on Asian characters based languages like Chinese, Ja There are various ways to translate Chinese text to English. Some of them are paid some of them are free. Does one dictionary available on play store called Pleco.
How can I translate Chinese text in a picture to English?Translate text in photos. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Translate app .. Choose the language you want to translate to and from. From: At the bottom left, choose a language or tap Detect language . ... . At the bottom of the text box, tap Camera . ... . Highlight the text you want to translate or tap Select all.. Can I take a picture of Chinese and translate?To do so, first, launch the Google Translate app on your phone. In the app, tap “Camera.” On the camera view page, from the top, select both source and target languages for your picture translation. To make the app detect the source language, choose “Detect Language” in the source language field.
Can I translate from a photo?You can use your phone's camera to translate text in the Translate app. For example, you can use your camera to translate signs or handwritten notes.
Can you translate a screenshot?Google Lens can now automatically translate texts in screenshots for devices running Android 11 or above. According to 9To5Google, users can now take a screenshot of a foreign language and let Google Lens do the translation without any intermediate step.
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