Google Translate can interpret more than just text. Here’s how to use it with text, speech, and images in 100+ languages.

Google Translate was first launched in 2006. It’s been widely reported that the software was born out of a disastrous translation of an email a South Korean fan had sent to Google’s founders. The company was licensing a translation service at the time, which translated the message as, “The sliced raw fish shoes it wishes. Google green onion thing!” The frustrating experience compelled Sergey Brin to lead the company in creating a product that could do better.

Now, nearly two decades later, Google Translate supports a whopping 133 languages, is used by millions of people every single day, and its Android app has racked up over a billion installs from the Google Play Store. In a 2018 Google earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai said Google Translate translates some 143 billion words every single day.

Google Translate is powered by a system called Google Neural Machine Translation, which translates whole sentences at a time and contextualizes the words and phrases. GNMT is also an end-to-end learning system, which means the system learns and improves upon the process over time. 

In 2023, Google announced that Google Translate will use AI-powered features to further improve its services, such as offering context options during translations and incorporating Google Lens to translate images.

Here’s everything you need to know about Google Translate and how to use it.

Is Google Translate an app? 

Google Translate is available as an app for both iOS and Android devices.

You can type, write, or speak into the Google Translate app, and it will provide translations within seconds. Additionally, the app uses Google Lens image-recognition technology to translate text from images — just point your smartphone’s camera at text in a foreign language (like a menu or a sign) and get a translation instantly.

Here’s how to use it: 

Translate text

1. Download the Google Translate app on your iPhone or Android.
2. At the bottom of the screen, select input and output languages.

3. Type the phrase or sentence you’d like to translate into the text field. The phrase will be translated in real time below.

Translate Images

1. After choosing the languages or selecting Detect language, tap the Camera icon in the lower-right corner.

2. Point your camera at any text you see so that it can be translated in real time.
3. Tap the Shutter icon to take a picture of the text you would like translated. 
4. To translate text from an image you’ve taken previously, tap the Gallery icon and select the photo from your iPhone’s gallery. Google Translate will superimpose the translated words over the text in the image.

Translate with audio

1. Tap the microphone icon at the bottom of the screen and dictate your sentence or phrase into the app.
2. Wait a few moments for the app to translate your dedicated text and select the Speaker button to hear the translated audio.
3. Tap the Speaker icon to hear the translation.

1. As another option, tap the Transcribe icon and start speaking. You can then select and copy the transcription elsewhere. 

Quick tip: Offline translations are also available for many languages. Plus, you’re able to save translated words and phrases for future use.

Is Google translate 100% right? 

Google Translate is not 100% accurate, nor is any other automated translation service. Google Translate has made some major mistakes, sometimes due to technology glitches and other times due to nuance or ambiguity in languages.

Google’s accuracy can also vary greatly depending on the language pair. Research has indicated that Google Translate had a 94% accuracy rate when translating between English and Spanish but only a 55% accuracy rate when translating between English and Armenian. Research has also shown that Italian and German are among the hardest languages for Google to translate.

Can I use Google Translate to translate a name? 

Google Translate may help you translate a person’s name — for instance, the name “George” plugged into Google Translate returns the name “Jorge” in Spanish — but use caution. Translations may not be contextually accurate, and rarer names may not be recognized.

Is ChatGPT or Google Translate better?

Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have translation capabilities already and may well overtake Google Translate in the future. 

Early research has indicated that ChatGPT translations have better terminological accuracy than translations from Google Translate, however, Google Translate tends to be better than ChatGPT at translating less-common languages. Either way, both ChatGPT and Google Translate tend to be much less accurate than actual human translators.