By Señior Tech from the March 2018 Edition
When travelling in Spanish speaking countries, “¿Puedo hablar con alguien que habla inglés?” is a natural question. But since the advent of smartphones and ‘always on internet’, anyone with one of these devices has the ability to communicate with anyone, in virtually any language.
Type in a phrase in English, choose the target language and within milliseconds, an understandable translation is generated. In the eleven years since the introduction of truly functional smartphones were introduced, the translation algorithms have improved to the point where the translations are over 90% accurate. And these translations improve daily with the help of crowd-sourced corrections. Soon, the translations will be seamless and 99.9% accurate.
There are apps for both Android and iOS devices available. The screenshot below is from my iPhone. By pressing the microphone button and speaking, the app translations to the tar-get language and not only displays the text, but speaks the translation. You can also point your phone’s camera at text, using the app, and it will translate what it sees.
So you can throw out those old translation books and use your phone as a pocket translator.
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Señior Tech is a technology addict that loves to share tips. He lives in Manzanillo full time and helps keep the community up on the latest tech tricks and toys.
