Google Translate Reviews

by Living In A Coomcave

They've replaced the google instant image translate with lens which is absolutely one of the worse things to ever exist in this apps history. It's difficult to translate text on an image because they separate each new line of text, on the image, with a new line for that text; it doesn't form complete sentences. For example- translating languages with different grammar will be incorrect due to it not putting the sentences together. Maybe if they add a "draw" feature like before, and didn't give you new lines of each new translated sentences, it would be better than the old one. But for now it's one of the most frustrating things; to have to form the sentences manually, and selecting the initial text is also a nightmare because you have to exit the lens and back into the returned text to copy the original text, if that's what you're looking for like me. Me and a bunch of other people are not happy with this new feature, would you enable us to use the old feature, or at least go through the effort to implement those old features into lens? I'm willing to wait as long as it takes for us to get those old features back.

by Whsbflfirhdbskabbd

As usual an update makes the produce worse instead of better. I live in a foreign country because of my husbands job. I use GoogleTranslate 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.

by Lizzie Licious

Many times when I record audio or pictures, the translation doesn’t even come up. The audio is worse since no matter what I do, speaking into the microphone is just a bust. I’ll say something into the microphone, and it won’t do anything. It doesn’t even load, it just indefinitely waits for me to say more. No matter how much I say, real words or not, it doesn’t ever even acknowledge that I’m done talking and if I hit any buttons, the X to close it or microphone button that you’d think would tell what it said, just cancel out of it.
Not to mention, taking pics is a nightmare. You have to highlight with your finger the phrases you want translated, but you can’t move the picture around easily. So if you zoom into a certain part, it’s hard to zoom back out, and you can’t move the picture at all without zooming in or out. So if you zoom out in a way that makes the pic go off to the side, well, too bad. Why can’t it just detect the words itself? Or at the very least, why can’t I translate more then one thing in a picture, and do I have to take the same picture again and again just to see everything it says?

by MTLima1995

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 GoogleTranslate , 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.

by NYCJames

I installed this because I frequently use the browser version in Google to translate between English and French and I thought GoogleTranslate would be more convenient. Took me less than a minute to see the flaws in it. It's a horribly designed app - for example, in the browser version you can "switch" the languages around to make the destination language the source language. This is really helpful if, for example, you wish to practice making sentences in a language and then switch them around to compare your sentence to how Google translates it. In GoogleTranslate , there is a switch button but it switches the TEXT between windows instead of just switching which is source and which is destination - so my French sentence goes into the English window and vice versa, meaning they don't get translated.

This is either a really stupid bug or an inexcusable design flaw, and to be honest it's entirely what I've come to expect from Google software. There are ALWAYS really stupid bugs and oversights which people complain about for years but which they never fix. Oh well, uninstalling it now.

by CAD Programmer

This is an amazing translation app, especially the real-time camera mode, straight out of science-fiction! However, it gives different results between camera Instant mode and Scan mode (often the Instant translation is close but a little off, Scan is more accurate but slower). A big problem with Scan mode is random omission of Japanese symbols from the source text and/or incorrect scans (wrong characters), so you’re unable to get a complete translation (frustrating). There are also frequent Google network errors resulting in delayed translation (or none at all), and frequent app crashes. You cannot pinch-zoom the camera, which is a problem on a smaller screen or text sizes. You can share/save only the translation results and not the scanned original foreign language text. I also don’t like how the camera mode always defaults to Instant instead of the last setting used. So although this is a convenient app for translations, it still needs a bit of work to get a higher rating from me.

by Vwh1

I have been using Google Translate and have been satisfied with translating from Russian into very understandable English. However, when I reply, my recipients tell me my letters are incomprehensible and nonsensical. Normally for serious correspondence I will first translate English to Russian and then submit the Russian translation to Google to see how it reads back into English. This allows me to adjust a few words that needed to be simpler and better understood, but even this two step process has not been helpful.

This inaccuracy results in disappointment, as my recipient wrote me, “bunch of additional incoherent text” and “it is absolutely impossible to do all this through automatic translators, because the translation is terrible, to put it mildly”.

I hope Google can find a way to improve this, especially as Russia is in the news more frequently and the demand is only going to increase.

by Cmvflash

google translator is bad because it automatically corrects what you say so if somebody in another language says something that is spelt badly it will automatically correct and that is bad when you tryings to understand them because they might say something else rather then what it automatically corrected one and it doesn’t detect some languages that are supported by apple so if you use a language that isn’t in google translator it will say its english instead of the actual language and it is when it is annoying because if you are trying to understand what you are saying in that language it will not work and there isn’t lots of translators as good as google translator which means you will never know the language where its from and maybe you would want to know but you can’t so thats why google translate is bad because people who speak different language and you tell back to them in they can tell you are using translator and so use a different translator instead of google translate.

by Mike Hallman

NB: This review relates specifically to French-English usage.

First, the good things. While no translator will ever offer a perfect translation, because there’s so much more that goes into it, Google’s well-designed app does an excellent job. It does a fair job of picking up colloquialisms and the nuances of context that can dramatically change the meaning of a word or phase. The camera, conversation, and transcribe features are excellent.

My two primary complaints are related. First, as with other Romance languages, French uses the second person plural of the pronoun “you” (vous) as a first person singular in formal settings. So informal singular is “tu” and formal is “vous”. If you are typing something in English to translate to French, there should be a way to indicate whether you want the formal or informal translation. Especially with as many irregular verbs as French has, if it defaults to the vous version it may be a challenge to adjust the verb to informal if you wish to do so. This should be a super easy fix.

Related to the above, not only does GoogleTranslate not let you choose, but it often times is inconsistent throughout a passage. It will switch back and forth between vous and tu for singular usage. This can create some laborious manual correction. This is something the developers here really need to address.

by Lacemaker 427

FEATURE REQUEST: Since most people are translating from a foreign language to their native language, it would be lovely if you could make your chosen language “stick” at the top of the list. I would prefer to have the languages I use most frequently stick to the top of the list. For me, they are: English, French, German, Latin, Russian, and Spanish. That would solve the annoyance of having to reselect one or more my core languages every time I deviate from my norm. I would like to include Croatian in my core list, but the machine voice for Croatian is unintelligible, even to native speakers because the sound quality is so poor and it speaks far too fast.

HEBREW & YIDDISH: It is not possible to learn to speak or translate from either of these languages. Google has NO VOICE, machine or natural, for EITHER of them, nor does it scribe the translation using our common alphabet, Latin. At least then, I could make an attempt at the pronunciation of the words.

I would cheerfully give Google Translate 5 stars as soon as these deficits are dealt with.

by Scrabble Lover 44

This program is useless when trying to overhear peoples conversations or listen to a speech. You can’t tell people to slow down and pause so you can translate each thing they said. That just does not work and is not practical. If I’m watching a show on TV in Chinese it is also fairly useless unless you want to press pause every few seconds.
Also when people are talking, you have to tell them to speak slowly and carefully. That is ridiculous. And you have to wait until they have completed a sentence to translate. That is silly.
What is needed is for GoogleTranslate to translate as a person is speaking. The user would just wear earphones an be able to listen nearly real time just like a real translator does. Or the translated words would appear as the person is speaking.

The function that translates what is written kind of works. It fluctuate the transition consistently until you freeze the frame. Obviously this function needs improving.

by Kiba9001

I really like GoogleTranslate, but there are many bugs and difficulty when using it. For example, when using the speech function it constantly stops working, saying there is a connection error where there isn't any. Or if my phone tilts a little bit on its side, the audio will stop and I have to start it all over again. This brings me to my next point: editing text. When you try to edit the text youre translating, its difficult to click it to be able to edit it or even find the spot you want to edit since the space is so small and cluttered. A function that will be really helpful is a pause/play button when youre having the text be read allowed and when the text is being read allowed, it doesnt stop if the device tilts to one side.

by Kkennedy555

Google Translate is now a form of augmented reality and is adapted for educational purposes. This application provides users with tools to translate between languages and they now include an image option; users take a photograph of a sign, piece of paper, or other form of written text and receive a translation in the language of their choice. This augmented reality is ground breaking because this allows online learners to access content in other languages. The application also translates spoken word in real time, which allows all learners to access audio in written form, in their own language, online or in-person.
This version of augmented reality that is adapted for education can be utilized in an online learning environment and can be utilized by instructional designers. One of the major challenges with instructional design is selecting the correct tools to build learning experiences. With this application, instructional designers are able to create a course in their own language and can make their lesson accessible to learners by recommending Google Translate for accessibility. I plan to utilize this in conjunction with my online lessons and videos in order to reach more students with diverse abilities and primary languages.

by Sloppy7ths

About 20 years ago , I lived in Japan for a few years. I did an OK job picking up the language while there, but I've forgotten most of it now.
I recently reconnected with a Japanese friend from those days who never spoke a lick of English. We've rekindled a friendship texting back and forth using Google translate as the medium. We have some very deep conversations on all manner of subjects, and despite the small hiccups, the service has served us very well. You have to be cognizant of what you're feeding into it and avoid colloquialisms and so forth, but by and large, it's quite flawless. Sometimes I forget that we aren't speaking the same language.
As for all the negative reviews, if you don't want you use Google Translate, go try to find something that works better. Best of luck with that.

by Malinastarplayz

When I had this on my I pad I was so dumb because I didn’t know how to use it,* 2 years later * I was looking for a translator app on App Store and has to be free because I know my dad and mom can’t it for me so I looked and looked most of them wanted me to buy it and I can’t buy it so I looked and looked again and I found GoogleTranslate I download it and when Open GoogleTranslate it was free and you can use A lot of languages in GoogleTranslate , in most apps you could only use one language so that made me happy and the other stuff about it! I love GoogleTranslate ! It’s the only app that I like to use for language! I hope other people like GoogleTranslate I saw some bad reviews I don’t know what’s their problem but yea I hope everyone likes it and yea! Thats all I wanted to say so yea, have a great day! :)

by Is Maggie Okay

I use google translate a lot, as a Korean pop fan, sometimes translations don’t come out and I have to use google translate to translate what I want to see. Using GoogleTranslate makes it SO MUCH EASIER. I love the writing and camera feature. Sometimes the camera doesn’t always find all the words, but the feature is so helpful when im writing and I want to check my work, or if something is in a different language and I want to know what it is. The writing feature is also super awesome because I can write in the word in example, Korean and it translates it for me. Sometimes I do feel like the translations are not very accurate as in when I put the other translation through to check and it comes out as something different, but of course the translations can’t always be correct. Overall, GoogleTranslate is easy to use and I love it! ♥️🤠

by Mobjack11

I use many different languages throughout each day, usually just little phrases here and there in my writing. GoogleTranslate is indispensable to me as I work, and the translations seem to just get better and better with each update. I’ve read a few of the negative reviews, and while I’m sure the inconveniences described by these folks are real, it also seems they me be expecting a bit too much. GoogleTranslate is very straightforward in its basic function of translating text that is input by the user. GoogleTranslate is also by Google, and thus it is highly aspirational in its features, and each update seems to bring further enhancements that may or may not be truly useful. I understand how this might get frustrating, but that’s just Google’s style. Eventually the kinks get worked out based on user feedback, which is how I think it should be. As far as a basic free translation app, this one is far and away the best.

by Rsmith7

If if you are using anything but Google translate to do your Spanish work for you, you are missing the boat. It translates whole pages of text instantly without error. It uses understandable language for our US - Mexico border area. I was using a different translator when I saw a doctor using Google to communicate with a Spanish only patient. That’s when I learned about Google Translate and switched.

For the past two years, I have used a different Spanish translator/dictionary App. It was slow and tedious, only would translate a short paragraph at a time, but worse - it inserted words which were clearly wrong. One time instead of asking my gardener to complete a task, it inserted the word marriage into the sentence! His wife would have not been happy! Luckily I caught it before texting as I had to double- check every phrase.
But now I no longer have to worry and each phrase is spot on. ( at least so far I think it’s been!).

by Sorry4ever

I don’t know where I was but I just noticed that Google Translate has the Latin language. This makes me happy because I have been trying to learn how some languages are related to Latin. I use Kindle books to learn Spanish and French and I noticed that there is no Latin dictionary for Latin within the Kindle environment which disappoints me. This is where Google Translate comes in. I think this will help me a lot.
I also just noticed that Google Translate is adding translations in male and female genders which I think is helpful if a person is translating to a person or a group of male and/or female persons. I would be embarrassed if I ever had to find a translation to send to a person and the wrong gender popped up. What if I didn’t notice that the translation was the wrong one?
These things may seem small but they have the potential to become large. Even though I am learning completely on my own without a native speaker to practice with, I like that Google is thinking of little things like this.
Thank you.

by PlatinumMedallion

This is hands down the best partner you can have while traveling short of someone who know the local language.

It’s just incredible what all it can do. It translates (augmented reality) live in the screen what ever you point at. No, no snapshots, Live, you point it at a Menu in a restaurant or instructions on the wall and it sees Spanish or Japanese or whatever language and you see English or whatever language you like.

Then comes conversing with locals. It has a live translator which speaks the local language. My taxi driver knew about GoogleTranslate and used it on his own when tying to communicate with me. Amazing, you talk in English and it speaks it back in Spanish and your local language. Then the other person speaks in Spanish or your local language and it speaks it back to you (and also shows it on the screen) in English.
That’s a live 2 way conversation. Something you saw in Star Trek back in the day. The universal translator.

No it’s not done yet. Yes you need an internet connection (data plans) for the above two buddies to work.

For those who don’t have a data plan or internet access it has offline translations. It won’t speak but will translate anything to anything as you type it in.

I’ve travelled 4 continents with GoogleTranslate so far and like I said it’s my best traveling companion.

by Audio-enslaved

Google Translate certainly works quite a bit better than some random online translation service, but there are quite a few things that could be improved.

Pros:
- Does a generally good (though not perfect) job translating phrases and idioms. In particular, many expressions that mean something in one language but doesn’t make sense in another are correctly translated to the analogous expression in the other language.
- Has an offline download feature that lets you translate without reception. This is of course very useful when your phone service doesn’t work overseas.
- Allows the saving of translations for future reference, but that doesn’t seem extremely useful.

Cons:
- One cannot choose to switch between various forms of a phrase for languages that have multiple types of conjugations. For example, you can’t choose to have French use tu instead of vous.
- The translation of a word does not show whether the word is masculine or feminine for languages where it’s relevant.
- While the offline feature is useful, it’s *extremely* slow. In fact, the online feature can be quite slow sometimes too.

I chose to give GoogleTranslate 3 stars because for me, the cons make it quite cumbersome to use GoogleTranslate as a general translation / reference manual.

by Archi95

If you are visiting a place where they speak a different language, or you simply want to communicate with someone in their language, this is the tool to use. Overseas, I recommend having this program and Microsoft translator. Both of them are great —AND FREE—, and although neither one is perfect, sometimes one does a better job translating than the other. Also, make sure you download the languages before traveling. You never know if you will have internet access when you need it, so better to have the language package available.
These translators are also getting better everyday. First time I tried them, they weren’t great, but were helpful. Nowadays, they do a great job in some languages. Spanish, Portuguese, French and Dutch modules are great, Chinese (Mandarin) isn’t that great, but did got us through. Again, download both, google and Microsoft sometimes they complement each other. While I had my wife’s phone with Google and mine with Microsoft, we got pretty high success. I guess sometimes one app gets some accents better than the other.
Again, both apps are greatly recommended for traveling overseas.
Thank you Microsoft and Google for making this a free App!

by WJMBOLIN

GoogleTranslate is so much better than Microsoft translator. I used it first set a lot of messages on social media to new friends only to find out those messages were a jumbled mess of random words. They assume you lack the skills and ability process thoughts into Russian even with translator. It’s hard to come back from.

I love that you can translate live with the camera because a lot of times I’m watching a broadcast or something and trying to keep up with everyone. The thing however that frustrates me the most about all apps including this one is that they tend to stop listening before the conversation has ended. Whether I just push the button and let go or cold it during the entire time after certain. It’s stops listening and you have to stop the sound if you’re lucky enough to be able to rewind it. I would like it to be easier to use within an app and not have to copy and paste etc. but overall I really like it it’s the one I use most and I’ve got some I paid for that just don’t stack up.

by DjLucky256

As a business owner of a home remodeling and renovations company here in North Alabama, GoogleTranslate is priceless to me. I can print out invoices, estimates and contracts in English. Point my hand held mobile personal computer (Cell Phone) at the paper documents and it will translate the words right from the document into any of the available languages (languages have covered all of my needs so far) and make another printable copy of said documents in the languages needed for customers. Email the documents to the customers for them to review, they can digitally sign them and return the original with their signature and then I can make a copy of the signed document and send the customer their copy!! I Love Technology!!! Thank You Google!!!!

by Hosintoy

I do not know enough Spanish and English is my primary language. So, I have had GoogleTranslate since Spring 2015 to communicate with my non English speaking friends who speaks only Spanish . It is so useful to show text info to a friend or to email to them. The speaker can talk for you in person. The reverse feature can help you check accuracy in the communicated info before you send email. I think they are getting better. Great in a debate with Someone. Your non English speaking friends can not fake ignorance: don’t know English to you. I have not had to use the picture translate mode much. I phone can Cut, Paste and Send in text or email. I am sure picture translate it just as good for reading materials. I use other language too and almost every day.

by Klc From W.va.

I’m so grateful to you for making GoogleTranslate available for me to use, because I have advanced Parkinson’s disease and one of the things that have been stolen from me with this disease is my ability to speak to my family members and my friends, ( and in case you don’t know much about this incurable disease.) I am going to try to make you aware of some of the things that I have come to call as things that this disease has stolen from me, and so, the reason why I’m so excited about GoogleTranslate is because I am now able to actually talk to my friends and family that I haven’t been able to talk with in over three to four years now! 🤭
Thanks again,
Kathi S.
Ohio