Not all of us have the ability or talent to learn several foreign languages, but visiting new countries, getting to know each other or getting a job, one cannot do without these skills. To make life easier for its users, Google has released a photo translator - an addition to Google Translate - Word Lens. This mobile application translates text from a photo, from a picture or other images with text. Google Photo Translator captures a photo and translates it into one of the 38 most widely spoken languages ​​in the world.

How to use Google Translate to translate text from photos?

First of all, install the Google Translate application with Word Lens, you do not need to download Word Lens separately, it is already built into the Google Translate application.

Download Google Translate for free (Google Translate) for and after that you can already translate text from a photo.

To use the Google Translate app as a photo translator, you need to launch the app, allow access to the camera on your mobile phone, point your smartphone camera at a picture with, for example, English or German. It's all. The online application will translate the text in the picture and display it for you. At the very beginning, when the application was first released, only a few languages ​​were available (Russian, English, French, Spanish, German and Italian), but now this list has been expanded to 38 languages, including the following translations:

• from Portuguese to Russian;
• from Japanese to Russian;
• from Chinese to Russian,
• from Arabic to Russian;
• even from Ukrainian to Russian;
• from Croatian to Russian;
• from Danish to Russian;
• from Mongolian to Russian;
• from French to Russian;
• and so on

But the developers of the translator of text from photographs do not intend to stop there either. It is worth noting that all users were waiting for the release of simultaneous translation. Translation from pictures in real time is promised to be further improved so that it takes no more than a couple of seconds. There are other features of the program:

• users can hear how the text from the translated language sounds;
• synchronization with other applications and social. networks;
• work offline, but only for iOS. To do this, you must first download the dictionary to your phone;
• translated into Simplified Chinese.

What it looks like in action translating text from a photo with Google Translate

The only negative is that the translation of text from a photo, where the handwritten test is carried out with difficulties, because it is difficult for the application to recognize it. Now you can only work in tandem with English language, but later you can choose language sets yourself. In Google Translate, for communication, for now, you have to enter and translate text in turn, but they promise to change this, and then the languages ​​\u200b\u200bwill be detected automatically, which will also be applied to Word Lens.

On the video you can see the principle of operation of the mobile application - a translator with a photo:

Recall that earlier it was necessary to buy languages ​​for translating text from photographs for money, but after acquiring Quest Visual, any linguistic set became free, although not for long. Therefore, it is worth downloading Google Translate from Word Lens to your phone as soon as possible if you are going on a trip, and you are not doing well with English, Spanish or French.

From personal experience of using an online photo translator

I recently went on a trip to Hungary. The Hungarian language itself is very difficult, and Hungarians are in no hurry to learn English. Therefore, the application very often helped out, especially in the store, when choosing goods and souvenirs. A small life hack— I recommend downloading the dictionary into the application in advance so that you can translate the text from the photo without the Internet (offline).

I was visited by the thought that how much the world is improving. Of course, knowledge of languages ​​is useful and necessary in itself, but thanks to new technologies, this knowledge is not something unique. And if you look into the future for 10-20 years, then I see a picture where not only texts from photos and images are translated online, but also voice. When the profession of translator will be transferred to robots or such applications for the first text in the photo, they will still have to look for a new application. Alas.

Translation of voice or sound online

Among other things, the Google Translate app supports voice translation. So, while traveling, you can speak in the application in your language, and it will translate into the desired one and vice versa. The world is changing.

Help in learning a foreign language

I thought that the article would not be complete if I did not recommend an application that would help you not to use all kinds of online translators from a photo or image, you will just immediately understand the words. The application is as simple as possible. You learn only 10 words a day.

Easy Ten - 10 words a day is 70 new words per week, 300 new words per month, 3650 new words per year. At the same time, a native speaker uses an average of 3,000 words in everyday life.

And finally start learning 10 words a day. That's 5 minutes a day!

That's all for sure now 🙂

However, now let's refine the search area and consider only photo translators - applications that allow you to translate what is filmed on the camera, that is, they can recognize text and more or less adequately reproduce it in your own language.

1. Google Translate

Yes, Google's branded translator last year. Supporting more than 50 languages, to work without an Internet connection, you must additionally download language packs for each language.

2. Lingvo Dictionaries

The Russian development of ABBYY offers more than 50 basic dictionaries for 30 languages. It has not only the Photo Translation function, but also helps in memorizing foreign words, offers exercises, searches for a translated word on the Web, and many other interesting features. Works autonomously. But, but, for a fee.

3. ABBYY Text Grabber + Translator

Another ABBYY application, already sharpened directly for the translation of photos. Take a picture of the fragment you are interested in, after which the recognized text can be immediately edited, translated, sent by e-mail or SMS. No Internet connection is required for text recognition, recognition is performed directly on the mobile device, however, an Internet connection is required for translation.

4. translator

Another proprietary app is Bing's Translator for Windows Phone. It allows you to translate voice, scan and translate text, download dictionaries to your smartphone and work offline. The translator also offers the Word of the Day service, which shows one word to remember on the start screen.

5.iSignTranslate

iSignTranslate allows you to see signs, tablets, signs in your language. No need to click, select, take a picture, just point your phone's camera at the text and the application will translate it automatically. An internet connection is required for translation.

Greetings, dear user and, undoubtedly, a lover of gadgets based on operating system iOS - iPhone and iPad. In today's short material, we will talk about a wonderful tool that appeared on smartphones relatively recently, but has already gained immense popularity among users. The tool that we will talk about today is a photo translator.

With this tool, you can translate any text in seconds, just by taking a picture of it.

Agree very convenient, especially when you travel. I have made for you a selection of photo translators for iOS (iPhone and iPad), which will allow you to choose the right tool for yourself. I selected each photo translator according to the following principles:

• Functionality. By this term, I mean the available possibilities of the photo translator. The more features the tool has, the more useful they are, the better the program, in my opinion.
• Ease of use. I don’t really like it, I think that no one likes it when the application is very inconvenient or difficult to use. Therefore, I selected programs that are as easy to use as possible.
• Appearance. I don’t know how this item fits under the photo translator, but, in my opinion, any program should have a good, thoughtful, pleasant appearance, i.e. design.

So, let's move on to the collection. You can find links to all the tools offered in the selection in the description for each photo translator. Attention: in order to immediately download the necessary photo translator to your mobile gadget, I recommend that you follow the links provided directly from it.

iSignTranslate

A good photo translator iOS app allows you to quickly and easily translate signs by simply taking a picture of them. I want to note that this application was made by our compatriot, which, as it were, by itself implies that it is best to use it for translation into Russian. Of all the features of this application, I would like to highlight the following three:

• Translation is carried out from all popular European languages;
• The application is free, although it is possible to make purchases of additional language packs;
• The application is regularly updated, which together with its Russian production cannot but rejoice.

You can download this photo translator from the link under the heading above.

Lingvo

Translator, photo translator, dictionary in general is a universal tool for iOS - iPhone and iPad. If you want a program that has everything at once, then use this tool. Of the features, I note the following:

• High speed text translation;
• Built-in exercises for memorizing English words;
• A large number of languages ​​for translation.

To translate the text conventional method far from always convenient and very tiring. We have already considered, but did not mention one more fast way translation on mobile devices. We are talking about translators through photos.

Instead of entering text, you can take a photo with your phone's camera and translate from it. Fortunately, in some translators, the ability to convert text exists and at the same time works quite well. True, most of them work only online.

In this review, we will try to find out which of the photo translators from English into Russian, French (and other languages) best copes with their duties. It is important for us that this is an application that is easy to install and use comfortably on your phone.

Reviewers:

Google Translate is the most functional photo translator for Android

Photo translator built into Google Translate is available as mobile application(iOS, Android) and online service.

For translation by picture, you need to specify the language of the original and translation. Of course, there is a function of instant translation from the camera mobile phone. For this function to work, you need to download a language pack for the selected target language.

In other cases, the photo translator works like this:

1. First, you need to get an image through the phone's camera,
2. Then select the area with the text that you want to translate with text,
3. Wait for some time while the image is processed online.

Video instruction on how to translate text from a photo:

By the way, it is not necessary to receive images from the phone's camera. Instead, a previously saved photo can be loaded into Google Translate (i.e. imported). The translator will again need to specify the text area, after which the translation will be available in the adjacent application window.

Photo translation is not available for all languages ​​(of which there are more than 100 in Google Translate). However, it is possible to translate into English from even Japanese, Korean (not to mention French, German) and other languages ​​into Russian.

For correct text recognition and, consequently, automatic translation, an active Internet connection is required. Offline translation in photo mode, alas, is not possible.

Yandex Translator is an online application for Android

Photo translation from Yandex works in the same way as Google's. The main difference is in the number of supported languages. But, it should be noted that for the most popular, and not some exotic ones, there is support for photo translation. There is no Korean or Swedish, but Japanese is available. To avoid embarrassment, check in advance for the availability of the desired direction.

In the web version of the translator, you can drag an image into the translation window, in the Android application you can take a photo directly on the camera and transfer it for translation, which is very convenient.

At the same time, there are features missing from Google Translate. For example, text recognition mode: Words/Lines/Blocks. In cases where auto-recognition goes astray (which is understandable), you can help Yandex in this way. Translation by blocks allows you to translate not by words, but by sentences.

Other advantages of Yandex Translator include the fact that it is convenient to save the translated text in the form of cards for further study and memorization.

For photo translation in Yandex, the picture must be well readable. Sometimes there are difficulties even with well-read text, for example, from the cover of a book in large letters. Here you also need to make allowances for the quality of the phone's camera, sometimes it is useful to wipe the lens.

Transfer through this application is only possible with an online connection. At the same time, there are offline dictionaries for standard text translation, you can easily download them through the Yandex Translator settings (they won't take up much space on your phone).

Microsoft Translator - simple and fast photo translator for Android

Although Microsoft Translator lacks any options for photo translation (apart from the choice of language directions), the application is quite convenient to use and does its job - of course, if the source text is legible through the phone's camera. To improve the readability of the source, you can activate the camera; make it easy in photo translation mode by clicking on the flash icon and then taking a photo by clicking on the region with the text.

Microsoft Translator translates an image over the original

Translation is carried out on top of the main layer. This may not be the most optimal method, but nevertheless, the translated text is read without any problems. In any case, the translation can be copied with one click and pasted, for example, into text editor or other application.

There are quite a few directions in Microsoft Translator. These are dozens of languages, some of which, by the way, are not available in Yandex Translator, so you can consider Microsoft Translator as an excellent addition or replacement for it.

The application works only in online mode. You can download it to your smartphone/tablet using the following link:

ABBYY TextGrabber is an application for recognition and translation of text from photos

ABBYY has released Lingvo translator and FineReader text digitizer. Meanwhile, there is another small but useful product that is a hybrid of these packages.

TextGrabber can digitize any text fragments. ABBYY TextGrabber is best suited for

• translation of texts from the screen of mobile devices and TV;
• photos taken with the camera;
• inscriptions, signs, road signs;
• documents and books, instructions.

In addition, you can convert the received text into links, search on the map and, of course, translate into Russian (and not only) from more than a hundred languages, including English, French, German, even Japanese and Chinese.

True, it should be noted that the translation capabilities of ABBYY TextGrabber are much more modest than in Lingvo. The fact is that photo translation is carried out through third-party services, and not through the ABBYY Lingvo server, as one might assume.

For translation, it is enough to specify the recognition language and end result. You can save only in raw text form.

There is a big plus that makes TextGrabber stand out from other translators. Namely: recognition functions in TextGrabber work offline (more than 50 languages ​​are supported). Thus, the text can be digitized, copied and transferred to another translator with offline support, for example, from Yandex or Google. Inconvenient, but as a way out of a situation where there is no Internet at hand, and you need to translate from a photo urgently.

Key Features of the TextGrabber Translator:

• You don't need to take a screenshot to recognize text;
• Support text recognition for Russian, English, Korean, German and other languages ​​offline;
• Automatic text conversion to the desired format - link, phone number, postal address or coordinates on the map;
• Online translation in more than 100 directions;
• Automatic copying of digitized text to the clipboard and conversion to voice;
• Saving and editing the received text on the phone.

Technology does not stand still and it would seem that what was impossible to do yesterday is becoming commonplace today. And now I want to tell you how you can do text translation from photo online spending a small amount of time on it. In the article, I will be guided by two online services. The first is Free Online OCR, and the second is Yandex Translator.

Photo translation

The procedure will take place in two stages. First we need to recognize and copy the caption from the image. Here you can resort to Internet resources, for example, OCR Convert, i2OCR, NewOCR, OnlineOcr, FreeOcr, OCRonline. And programs, say, ABBYY FineReader. And then the translation will follow.

Before starting work, important points should be emphasized:

• The font in the photo should look distinct and not merge too much with the picture.
• The file extension must have the graphic extension PCX, GIF, BMP, JPG, JPEG, PNG, ICO, SVG, TIFF, AI, PSD, RAW, PSP, etc.
• Don't upload huge pixel formats.
• Since machine translation is used, the outcome may not be perfect and will need to be improved.

Free Online OCR

I just want to say that this service more suitable for ordinary pictures, I mean those on which the background, behind the inscription, does not have pronounced and multi-element noise, in other words, a solid color.

Let's say this is an option.

Go to the site, click "Browse" and upload desired document in order to translate words from a photo. Yes, I almost forgot, you need to set the recognition language a little lower. In my case, these are "English" and "Russian".

Now click the "Upload + OCR" button.

In the new window that opens, we see the following - the file that we downloaded, and below the text from it.

Now what we are doing is translation. Click on the "Google Translate" link (I showed it in the screenshot above) to get the result.

How to translate text from a photo using Yandex Translator

To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised by this opportunity, because I didn’t suspect before, I didn’t even notice that such a service is available from Yandex, and initially I wanted to write about a program that translates text into foreign language from a photograph.

We follow the link, select the language (difficult to choose? - I recommend setting "Auto-detection"), I marked from English to Russian, click on "Choose file", upload the document.

The copied label will be displayed in a new window. It is important here to take into account the fact that the text detected by the system will be highlighted in a different color, respectively, if some word is not marked, then its translation will not be displayed.

That's all. If you know free utilities, Internet resources, write in the comments.