Phone and Tablet Tips

Translate languages using Google Interpreter

Interpreter mode has long been one of the smartest features on Google’s speaker-based personal assistants. It’s a shame that restricting it to devices that need a mains connection – and so can’t be moved – has robbed them of their most useful feature: the ability to provide live translations on the move. Happily, it’s now available on phones and tablets, providing two-way translations when you’re out and about.

Launch it with either “Hey, Google, be my French translator”, or “Hey, Google, help me speak French” (or whichever language you need), and hold your phone between yourself and the person you’re talking to. Now, speak in English and, when it’s detected that you’ve stopped talking, Assistant will translate to French and speak the result (see screenshots below left). It will then start listening again and, when it hears a French response, translate it into spoken English. You can carry on like this until you’ve both got to the end of your conversation. At that point, just say “stop”, “quit” or “exit”.

If you’re using an Android phone, Assistant is built in but, if it’s not set to listen out for “Hey Google”, hold down on the home button until the Assistant pops up before using one of the commands above. If you have an iphone, you’ll need to install the Google Assistant app and launch it from the home screen. The app is free from www.snipca.com/33611.

Don’t worry if you’re not travelling in a French-speaking country: interpreter works across 44 languages, including Italian, German, Spanish, Mandarin and Japanese, and less common tongues like Estonian, Cambodian and Telugu. The easiest way to find out if it supports the tongue you need is simply to ask it to be your translator for that language.