Google announces improved contextual translation features

Google announced a host of new translation-related features at its Live from Paris event today including improved contextual search, a redesigned iOS app and a seamless AR translation feature through Google Lens.

The search giant is improving contextual translation in English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. This means that words and phrases with multiple meanings will get translated based on the context of the text. It’s a great way to make sure that your sentence sounds natural and that you’re using idiomatic words. It works a bit like Linguee and Reverso Context.

This may also be helpful to avoid using some offensive or hateful meaning of a phrase when you are not fluent in a language. Google said this update is rolling out in the coming weeks and will have support for more languages in the coming months.

Last year, the company updated the Google Translate Android app with a new design that followed the ‘Material You’ design system. Now, it is bringing new features and a refreshed user interface to the iOS app. The updated app has a big microphone button on the bottom-center part so that users can easily input text through voice. The iOS app also introduces a dynamic font that makes translations more readable as you type. Plus, The redesign makes it easier to choose languages with fewer taps.

What’s more, the redesigned app adds gestures like swiping down to access recent translations and holding the language button to quickly pick a recently used language.

The iOS app also recently added support for offline translation of 33 new languages including Basque, Corsican, Hawaiian, Hmong, Kurdish, Latin, Luxembourgish, Sundanese, Yiddish and Zulu.

Last September, Google showed off a new translate capability that seamlessly blends real-world translated text into the background image. This means if you are translating a poster written in another language, it won’t look out of place. The company is now rolling out this ability on Android phones with 6GB of RAM or more.

Apart from this, Google also announced the global launch of multi-search along with enhancements for Maps including immersive views in five new cities and expanding the glanceable directions feature to all users.