

Google Translate will, however, automatically translate the text on the screen and overlay the translation on top of the original text. The process of instant translation can be a little slow, especially on older phones. Tip: For the best results you should ensure adequate lighting, that the text is correctly orientated and that the text is flat on to the phone, rather than crumpled. All you need to do is point the camera so that the screen shows the text you want to be translated. In languages where instant translations are available, this option will be selected by default. Tap the “Camera” icon on the left to switch to the camera translation mode.

Tip: Before switching to the camera mode, it’s helpful to ensure that your language selections are correct. To launch the camera translation feature, just tap the “Camera” icon on the left under the standard translation box. The feature works through a combination of optical character recognition, the translation algorithm, and image processing. With some languages, you may need to take a photo and then highlight the text in the image that you want to be translated. With many languages, you can automatically translate in real-time as you hold the phone. Camera translation allows you to take pictures of text in a large and increasing variety of languages and translate it directly from the image.
