Google Now Translates Voice In Real Time, and It’s Bene

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Google Assistant can now translate up to 27 languages and respond in real time.

LAS VEGAS—Google Assistant's translation feature just got a huge upgrade. The voice assistant is now capable of understanding spoken words and speaking the translation in one of 27 languages. I had a chance to try out this feature, and was suitably impressed with its accuracy.

Google's interpretation feature is currently rolling out to all Google Home devices, and will soon make its way to third-party smart speakers with Google Assistant. It's not yet available for smartphones, but the company said that was next on the list. If you're using a smart display, such as the Google Home Hub, the words you speak will appear onscreen, along with their translation.

MORE: Best Google Home Commands - Things That Google Assistant Can Do

I spoke in Italian with a concierge who was speaking English, as well as a Google representative who was speaking German. The translation isn't quite simultaneous; after I spoke a phrase, there was a pause of a little less than a second before Google would speak the translated sentence. The other person then had to wait for a chime before they could speak their response. It made the conversation feel a little jagged, but it worked well enough.

Other languages that Google recognizes include Spanish and Mandarin. However, Google Assistant has some rough edges. For example, if you don't speak with the proper inflection, it will have trouble translating — as a colleague discovered when he tried saying "donde esta el bano." Also, when I said, "My name is Michael Prospero" in Italian, the Assistant translated my first name as Michelle.

Those issues aside, the voice interpretation for Google Assistant is a powerful feature, and something that will make it useful when traveling overseas — especially when it comes to smartphones. It's also a huge advantage over Amazon Alexa, and could help swing more people over to Google's Assistant. 

Update: Here are the languages that Google can translate: Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

Credit: Mike Prospero/Tom's Guide

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Mike Prospero
Mike Prospero
U.S. Editor-in-Chief, Tom's Guide

Michael A. Prospero is the U.S. Editor-in-Chief for Tom’s Guide. He oversees all evergreen content and oversees the Homes, Smart Home, and Fitness/Wearables categories for the site. In his spare time, he also tests out the latest drones, electric scooters, and smart home gadgets, such as video doorbells. Before his tenure at Tom's Guide, he was the Reviews Editor for Laptop Magazine, a reporter at Fast Company, the Times of Trenton, and, many eons back, an intern at George magazine. He received his undergraduate degree from Boston College, where he worked on the campus newspaper The Heights, and then attended the Columbia University school of Journalism. When he’s not testing out the latest running watch, electric scooter, or skiing or training for a marathon, he’s probably using the latest sous vide machine, smoker, or pizza oven, to the delight — or chagrin — of his family.