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How to Use Google Translate for Text, Images, and Real-time Conversations

Feel at home with new friends or in a new country

Jonathan Fisher is a CompTIA-certified technologist with more than 10 years of experience writing for publications like TechNorms and Help Desk Geek.

• Wichita Technical Institute
• Translate Text With Google Translate
• Translate Images
• Translate Words and Speech
• Translate Real-Time Conversations

How Many Languages Does Google Translate Support?

• Get Google Translate

What to Know

• For text: Select a language > Tap to enter text > begin typing > Enter .
• For spoken word: Select a language > tap the mic > begin speaking at the beep. Tap the Speaker icon to hear the translation.
• For conversations: Select a language > tap Conversation > begin speaking. Watch the screen for the translation.

This article explains how to use Google's Translate tool, which can handle text, images, speech, and even real-time conversations.

How to Translate Text With Google Translate

Translating text is the easiest and most well-supported function of Google Translate. Here's how to translate any text you come across.

Select the name of the source language you want to translate from in the top-left of the screen. In this example, we're using English .

Then select the name of the destination language you want to translate to in the screen's top-right. In this example, we're using Spanish .

Select the field that says Tap to enter text and either type or copy and paste (press and hold) the text you want to translate into this field.

You can also use the predictive text function to help write what you want to translate quicker.

The Google Translate app will continually translate what you're writing in the field underneath. At any time during this translation process, you can tap the Speaker icon to hear what it sounds like in your chosen translation language.

When you're finished typing you can use the right arrow or Enter key to return to the previous screen, then if you want to copy the translation, tap the three-dot menu icon and select Share .

How to Translate Images

Translating a foreign language from an image or picture using your camera or previous images is super handy when you're out and about. In our example, we'll use a food menu.

Select the source language and the translation language at the top of the screen. In this example, we are using Chinese to English .

Select the Camera icon.

Align what you want to translate in your camera window and select Instant .

If you want to translate an image you already have, select the Import button and then locate and select the image on your device. Then skip to Step 4 .

Google will translate the image on your device. It may take a moment for the translation to complete, but once it does, you'll be able to select individual words in the image to highlight their translation.

Some languages offer live translation, but others require a saved image. To scan and save a selection for translation, select the Scan button.

How to Translate Words and Speech

Translating what you say into a different language is one of the most useful features of Google Translate when traveling or just trying to learn a new language . Here's how to do it.

Select the source language and the translate to language at the top of the screen.

Tap the microphone icon and when prompted with a beep, begin speaking. Google will automatically translate your voice into text form.

Select the Speaker icon to hear the translation spoken back to you.

If you want to dictate what you say into a different language instead, select the Transcribe icon. Then begin speaking as before, and what you say will be translated into your destination language on screen.

Transcribing is different than dictating. When you're dictating, you're just using your voice instead of a keyboard or stylus to input data to be translated. When you're transcribing, you're creating a written output of your voice. Transcribing is especially useful if you need to send a message or write an email.

Tap the microphone and then begin speaking as before..

What you say will be translated into your destination language on screen. When you're finished speaking, tap the microphone again to end the transcription.

How to Translate Real-Time Conversations

You can also use Google Translate to facilitate a live conversation between you and someone who speaks a language you don't understand.

Select the source and destination languages at the top of the screen.

Select the Conversation icon. 

You can manually select the speaker's language at any one time to force the app to use that as the source or select the Auto button to allow the app to determine who is speaking at any one time.

Begin speaking. The translation of what you're saying will appear on screen, as will a translation for any replies from the person you are speaking to. This lets you both see what's being said in real-time.

Google Translate can translate about 103 different languages for text translation. Although not all of them are as natural as each other, and 59 are supported offline, it covers much of the world and its most populous languages.

New languages can often be added, so you can check out the complete list of languages supported on the Google site.

Real-time speech conversations support 43 distinct languages, while camera image translation is available in up to 88 languages. You might think handwriting is more challenging, but it supports 95 different languages.

How to Get Google Translate

To make the most of Google Translate, you'll need to download and install the app on your compatible Android or iOS device . Before beginning any of the instructions below, make sure the app is open and functioning.

Download for:

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Google Translate

44.1K ratings

View translations easily as you browse the web. By the Google Translate team.

Highlight or right-click on a section of text and click on Translate icon next to it to translate it to your language. Learn more about Google Translate at https://support.google.com/translate. By installing this extension, you agree to the Google Terms of Service and Privacy Policy at https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies. UPDATE (v.2.0): Now you can highlight or right-click a text and translate it vs. translate the entire page. You can also change extension options to automatically show translation every time you highlight text. UPDATE (v.2.14+): Page translation is now supported natively in Chrome browsers and is no longer supported in the Google Translate extension. See https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/173424 to learn how to use it.

4.3 out of 5 44.1K ratings Google doesn't verify reviews. Learn more about results and reviews.

Fadhel Essid Sep 2, 2024

why i cant copy the text from translation panel

TheGoodFella Sep 1, 2024

why can the app translate from an image but this cant

Google Translate handles the following:

This developer declares that your data is.

• Not being sold to third parties, outside of the approved use cases
• Not being used or transferred for purposes that are unrelated to the item's core functionality
• Not being used or transferred to determine creditworthiness or for lending purposes

Simple Translate

Quickly translate selected or typed text on web pages. Supports Google Translate and DeepL API.

Google Translate Assistant

Provide webpage/selected word/PDF/document/deepl/online/dictionary definition/Google/screenshot/image/contrastive translation

Quick Translate

This extension provides quick translation of selected texts

一站式划词 / 截图 / 网页全文 / 音视频 AI 翻译扩展，支持谷歌、DeepL、ChatGPT、Claude、Gemini、百度等 22 个国内外主流翻译服务，均可用于全文翻译。能在 PDF 里使用。

Right Click to translate selected text using Google Translate

Google Translate Plus

Translate the definitions by google translate.

Translate Selected Text

Translate selected text with Google Translate

Translate - Translator, Dictionary, TTS

Accurate translate words, phrases and texts using Google Translate. Full page translator, dictionary and text to speech (TTS).

Translator, dictionary - accurate translate

Translate text on any webpage instantly using Google Translate. Online Translator, accurate Translation.

Multilanguage Translator

Multilanguage Translator, translate words, translate phrases. Full page translator and dictionary, text to speech (TTS).

Mate Translate – translator, dictionary

Your translator for web pages, PDFs, highlighted text, & Netflix subtitles. Understand 103 languages easily.

ImTranslator: Translator, Dictionary, TTS

Translator, Dictionary, Voice

Kecepatan suara

Terjemahan teks, teks sumber, hasil terjemahan, terjemahan dokumen, tarik lalu lepas.

Penerjemahan situs

Masukkan URL

Terjemahan gambar

Millions translate with DeepL every day. Popular: Spanish to English, French to English, and Japanese to English.

Mga Setting

Bilis ng boses, pagsasalin ng text, source text, mga resulta ng pagsasalin, pagsasalin ng dokumento, i-drag at i-drop.

Pagsasalin ng website

Maglagay ng URL

Pagsasalin ng larawan

Google Translate 4+

Text, photo & voice translator.

• #1 in Reference
• 4.3 • 76.8K Ratings

Screenshots

Description.

Translate between up to 133 languages. Feature support varies by language: • Text: Translate between languages by typing • Offline: Translate with no internet connection • Instant camera translation: Translate text in images instantly by just pointing your camera • Photos: Translate text in taken or imported photos • Conversations: Translate bilingual conversations on the fly • Handwriting: Draw text characters instead of typing • Phrasebook: Star and save translated words and phrases for future reference Permissions notice: • Microphone for speech translation • Camera for translating text via the camera • Photos for importing photos from your library Translations between the following languages are supported: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Assamese, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Bambara, Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Cebuano, Chichewa, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dhivehi, Dogri, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Ewe, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Guarani, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Kinyarwanda, Konkani, Korean, Krio, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Kurdish (Sorani), Kyrgyz, Lao, Latin, Latvian, Lingala, Lithuanian, Luganda, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Maithili, Malagasy, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Maori, Marathi, Meiteilon (Manipuri), Mizo, Mongolian, Myanmar (Burmese), Nepali, Norwegian, Odia (Oriya), Oromo, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Quechua, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Sanskrit, Scots Gaelic, Sepedi, Serbian, Sesotho, Shona, Sindhi, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swedish, Tajik, Tamil, Tatar, Telugu, Thai, Tigrinya, Tsonga, Turkish, Turkmen, Twi, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh, Xhosa, Yiddish, Yoruba, Zulu

Version 8.15.502

• Several bug fixes and usability improvements

Ratings and Reviews

76.8K Ratings

Now 5 Stars But Still Recommed Deepl

This is 1 of only 2 translator apps I will give 5 stars. It has gotten much better over time to the point that I can reasonable rely on it to doble check things. If you need real time transcription, Google Translate is the best. For anything else though including accuracy, definitely use Deepl. Google Translate has come a long way at figuring out Idioms, sayings, the right usage when something is ambiguous, etc. However, Deepl still gets things right more often, especially with the paid version when it can deep dive into things like verification of tone and level of formality for audience where what you have on paper may be 100% correct but may the verb usage is informal but a student is talking to a teacher. This is area Google Translate comes up short. Overall though, 5 stars and definitely far better than any of those other translator apps out there except Deepl.

Horrible Application Given the Size of the Company

The Google translate app is a joke. There are very few apps that can lead someone to yell expletives while sitting in their kitchen trying to enjoy a cup of tea. Editing something you’ve written on the Google Translate App is a pitiful process filled with tapping the screen of your phone over and over attempting to unselect individual words or sentences. Sometimes it selects the entirety of what you’ve written and won’t allow you to unselect it without a fight. It’s unconscionable that the process for editing what you’ve written doesn’t follow every other smart phone format. Not only that, when you’ve finished writing of considerable length, in my case an email, and would like to highlight, copy and paste it, you will quickly realize you cannot highlight and scroll at the same time like you can on any other apple app that includes type. Instead, you’re forced to go through a ridiculous process of highlighting as much as you can see, pasting it, returning to the app, copying more and then pasting that. I repeated that process six time before I had copied my email over to gmail. If I had more time I would go into detail about the “define” tool that pops up unprovoked and further adds to the absolute farce that is the UX of this application. For a company like Google to have produced such a dysfunctional infuriating UI is truly shameful.

This used to be excellent. Google lens made it terrible!

As usual an update makes the produce worse instead of better. I live in a foreign country because of my husbands job. I use this app everyday. ALL THE TIME! Before, I could use the camera option to translate in real time or take a picture and let it scan for text. Then I could choose which text to translate, it could be 1 word or 1 sentence or 1 paragraph or the whole thing. The lastest update removed this option. Now when I click on the camera option it says “Google lens” it automatically blocks out the original texts and puts the translation over it, like it did previously but now when I take the picture I can not scan the text and choose what part to translate. It simply takes a screen shot of the translation already made on the first screen. If I try to select a specific word, it selects the translation and then translates it back into the original language. This does work well! The meaning gets more and more mixed up until it just makes no sense at all. Translating a translation instead of just scanning the original text is a huge downgrade. I am so frustrated! I am going to start looking for other translators because this has caused a lot of issues for me, on a daily basis. I’ll keep checking back to see if they ever fix this issue or not.

App Privacy

The developer, Google , indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .

Data Linked to You

The following data may be collected and linked to your identity:

• Contact Info
• User Content
• Search History
• Identifiers
• Diagnostics

Data Not Linked to You

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:

• Browsing History

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Information

English, Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Cambodian, Catalan, Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Gaelic, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Korean, Kyrgyz, Laotian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian Bokmål, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Shona, Simplified Chinese, Singhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yiddish, Yoruba, Zulu

• Developer Website
• App Support
• Privacy Policy

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Instantly Translate a Document from English to Chinese (Simplified)

Drag & drop your file here or

All uploaded files are permanently removed from our servers within 1 hour.

By uploading a document, you agree to our terms and conditions .

SUPPORTED FORMATS

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Right-to-Left (RTL) Language Support

Online Doc Translator now fully supports translations of the following right-to-left languages:

Translate any document's text to Chinese (Simplified)

Use our free translator to instantly translate any document to and from English or Chinese (Simplified)

Simply upload a English or Chinese (Simplified) document and click "Translate"

Translate full documents to and from English and instantly download the result with the original layout preserved

Translate English documents to Chinese (Simplified) in multiple office formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, OpenOffice, text) by simply uploading them into our free online translator

Frequently Asked Questions

• Help Center
• Google Docs Editors
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service
• Submit feedback

Translate documents or write in a different language

You can translate documents into many languages  with Google Docs.

Translate a document

• On your computer, open a document in Google Docs .

• Enter a name for the translated document and select a language.
• Click Translate .
• A translated copy of your document will open in a new window. You can also see this copy in your Google Drive .

Tip : If 'Translate document' isn't visible, you're likely in Microsoft Office editing. To translate, convert your file to Google Docs. Learn about Microsoft Office editing and  how to convert Microsoft Office files .

Change your typing language

• Phonetic input:  Type the phonetic spelling of a word in Latin characters, then click the best match from the options on the screen.
• Keyboard input: To type letters and symbols, click the keys of a virtual keyboard or type matching keys with your physical keyboard.
• In handwriting input: Draw characters in a panel in the bottom right of your screen, then click the best match from the options on the screen.

Tip:  In Workspace, the handwriting input only works when 'access to additional services without individual control' is turned on in the Admin console .

Need more help?

Try these next steps:.

Using Google products, like Google Docs, at work or school? Try powerful tips, tutorials, and templates. Learn to work on Office files without installing Office, create dynamic project plans and team calendars, auto-organize your inbox, and more.