Photo Google translator is now from the smartphone camera. The best photo translators for iOS, Android and Windows Phone

Many of us have an endless passion for travel and mostly we have a need to translate from English into Russian. We want to visit new cities and countries, get acquainted with other cultures, communicate with many new and interesting people. Of all the barriers that prevent us from fully receiving new, vivid impressions from the trip, language barrier is one of the most important. Our inability to understand speech that is foreign to us becomes a significant obstacle to communication, which inspires us to search for ways to, if not eliminate, then at least smooth out this deficiency. One of these methods is the use of auxiliary programs that turn our smartphone into a fast and convenient translator and interpreter. writing. IN this material I will look at one of these mobile programs - “Translator from Google”, which allows you not only to perform the usual oral and written translation, but also to translate the text on the photo we have. But first things first.

Google launched its web translation service back in 2006, and a few years later mobile forms of the translator for Android and iOS saw the light. At first, the application was criticized for its rather rigid, “machine” translation text, limited opportunities and unstable functionality. But the constant work carried out by the developers to improve the capabilities of the application, as well as the transfer of the translator engine to “GNTP” (neural machine translation) in 2016, significantly improved its position, and now this tool is not only one of the most popular, but also one of the most reliable.

An important step In the development of the application, Google purchased the company “Quest Visual” - the developer of the mobile application “Word Lens”, which allows you to translate any foreign text using a camera. Google first made the mentioned program free, and then included it in the functionality of its translator, who learned not only to translate written and spoken speech, but also to translate using a mobile phone camera.

How to use Google Translator

The translator's capabilities allow you to use your smartphone's camera to translate text in real time, as well as translate text from a photo you've already taken.

To take advantage of the translator's capabilities, first of all, download it to your gadget (Android or iOS).

After launching, select the language from which the translation will be performed on the top left, and the language into which the translation will be performed on the right.

To translate using a camera, click on the corresponding camera icon in the program menu on the left.
Then point your phone camera at the text you need to translate, and you will almost immediately see its translation on the screen of your device.

Visually it looks something like this:

The second option Translating text from a photo involves taking a photograph and then translating the foreign text on it.

You can also translate text from English into Russian (for example) from an image already on your phone. To do this, you need to launch the application, click on the mentioned camera button, and then tap on the picture button to the left of the red bottom button (this will allow you to select a photo from the phone’s memory).

Other features of the translator allow you to use voice translation (a button with a microphone image), as well as text (a button with a snake image).

Is it possible to use image translations on a PC?

The best way to do this on a computer is to use . Google version translator on a PC in the form of the popular network service https://translate.google.com/?hl=ru does not allow processing of photographs with further translation of the text on them. Because alternative option is to use any Android emulator for Windows OS, which allows you to install this application on your computer and subsequently use its capabilities.

Install one of the popular Android emulators on your PC (for example, Bluestacks 2 or Nox Player).
Launch the emulator, log in, enter your Google account information.
Then use the search to find Google Translator and install it.
After that, find its icon on the emulator desktop, click on it, and use its capabilities on your PC (as far as it is functional).

Alternative solutions are to use a number of stationary programs at the “Screen Translator” level (you select a part of the screen with text, and the translator performs its translation). “Translator”, “Photron Image Translator” and other analogues that allow you to translate text from an existing image into the language we need.

The capabilities of “Photron Image Translator” claim to translate text from an image loaded into the program

Conclusion

The capabilities of Google Translator allow us to quickly translate the text we need by simply pointing the camera of our smartphone at such text. Other features of the application include the translation of text on a photo already in the device’s memory, as well as the usual voice and text translation. If you are looking for alternatives to such a translator on a PC, then I recommend trying the stationary alternatives listed above, which in some cases are not inferior to their mobile counterpart.

Good day everyone!

Probably, almost each of us has come across photographs, pictures, and simply seen posters somewhere in a foreign language. And almost always, I would like to quickly translate and find out what is written there...

In general, in this case you can go in three ways:

open one and manually enter the desired text (this option is long, painful and dreary);
use programs for translating pictures into text (for example, ABBYY Fine Reader), and then copy the resulting text into a translator and find out the result;
use special applications and services that allow you to perform the operation of translating text from a picture (or photo) automatically (i.e., do what is described in paragraph 2 independently, without your participation).

Actually, this article will be about the third option. I note that in the article I will consider photo translators for both PCs and smartphones.

Note: I’ll note right away that what better quality source photo (picture) - the better the quality of the recognized text from it, and the translation itself will be.

Online services (for PC)

Yandex translate

An excellent translation service from one language to another (it already supports more than 95 languages!). As for recognizing text in a picture, the Yandex service does an excellent job of this task (in no way inferior to the famous Fine Reader program).

In my example, I used a photo of a book page (in English). The steps for translation are quite simple:

follow the link provided above;
upload your picture with foreign text;
specify the language (usually the service determines it automatically. In my case, “Anglican -> Russian”);
then just click on the “Open in Translator” link (see screenshot below).

Left: the original text that was in the photo is presented, right is its translation. Of course, machine translation requires some work: you can copy the finished text and transfer it to Word for further development (I note that the quality of the translation also depends on the subject of the text. And since I took fiction- it doesn’t translate very well).

Free Online OCR

Supports formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PDF, DjVu

Unlike Yandex, this service is less picky - it even supports the DjVu format (and it has quite a lot English books, magazines, articles).

In addition, I note that some photos (where rare fonts are used) are recognized by the service much better! And one more thing: the service allows you to use two translation options: using Google technology and using Microsoft Translator. So, if there are pictures or photos that Yandex translator couldn’t handle, try this service!

How to use it:

go to the main page of the site (the address is indicated just above);
select the file you want to recognize;
indicate two languages: one, which is in the photo (English, for example); the second - which one you want to translate into (Russian).
press the "Upload + OCR" button (that is, upload and recognize the text on the photo).

After some time (depending on the size of the downloaded file), you will see the resulting text and several links above: you can select Google translator, Bing, or simply download the resulting text.

By choosing Bing, I received a translation of my text (the quality is not high, because the work is fiction).

Smartphone applications (Android)

Google Translate

A very worthy application for a smartphone that allows you to translate text into 103 languages (I note that it supports 59 languages offline - i.e. no Internet required!)!

The application has a built-in camera translation function in real time: i.e. just point your phone camera at English text- and you will see the text in Russian in the translator window! However, the arsenal also includes classic work: this is when a picture is photographed in a foreign language, and then the text is processed and output in Russian (for example).

It's quite simple to use:

launch the application and select two languages: the source (which is in the picture) and your native language into which you want to translate;
then click on the “camera” icon (see screenshot below, arrow No. 1);
then you need to point the camera at the foreign text (note that the application immediately displays the translation). However, if the text is long, I recommend taking a photo of it (see screenshot below, arrow No. 2).

Then click on the “Select All” button and click on the blue arrow. Next you will see your translation of the text. See screenshots below.

In general, everything is done very high quality and convenient. As a rule, almost everyone carries a phone with them, which means you can always quickly translate a poster or photo. I recommend you check it out!

ABBYY Lingvo

Several languages are available for free use: Russian, English, German, French, Spanish.

This smartphone application allows you to translate many sentences, phrases and words without access to the Internet. In total, the application supports three types of translation:

classic manual input: when you type the desired text yourself;
from an already taken screenshot, picture or photograph;
and using your phone camera (in 1 click!).

Generally, good helper for travel, study and work. You can quickly translate a small text, a postcard, a newspaper article, correspondence with a colleague/friend, etc.

Peculiarities:

"live translation": point to a word from the displayed text on the screen - immediately get its translation;
photo translation: select a screenshot or photo and get a translation of the words captured on it;
11 dictionaries are available for download to anyone (free of charge!);
convenient hints when searching for words;
the dictionary contains not only the translation of the word, but also its transcription, grammatical information about it, examples of use (you can also listen to it - very useful for those who learn a foreign language);
a history of words that you requested earlier is kept (it’s convenient to learn words by rechecking your memory from time to time!).

If you have anything to add, thanks in advance!

That's all, good luck everyone!

Only two weeks of the new year have passed, and the company has already managed to please both existing ones. And today Google Translate has been updated and become significantly smarter. Now the application has become a truly indispensable assistant when traveling abroad or communicating with foreigners.

The first new feature is instant translation using the tool Word Lens. To use it, you need to tap the new camera icon, then point it at a sign, menu, or whatever you need to translate.

Let's try it using the English-language KFC website as an example. We will translate the inscription about chickens.

We point the camera at the text, and it immediately selects translation options. If you translate one word, then everything happens faster. Conveniently, this function works without an Internet connection. Now you can translate from English into Russian, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, and back into English. More languages will be added in future updates.

The video shows it more clearly:

By the way, photo translation (though not instantaneous) was available for Android devices before.

The second big update is simultaneous voice translation. Some rudiments of such a tool existed before, but everything was slow, it was possible to translate only one phrase at a time, and it certainly didn’t match the name of simultaneous translation. Now it's really fast and the voices sound very natural. The application itself determines which of the two languages you speak and translates.

Of course, the program will not be able to translate complex linguistic structures, and, unlike a living person, it will not experience all the nuances. But not everyone will take a translator with them. So for household purposes or personal trips the application is now valid indispensable assistant. Don't forget to download or update before traveling.

Users are faced with the need to translate text from photos online. Situations can be different: there is text in a photograph that needs to be extracted from the image and translated into another language, there is an image of a document in a foreign language, text from the picture needs to be translated, etc.

You can use text recognition programs that use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to extract text from images. Then, the text extracted from their photo can be translated using a translator. If the original image good quality, then in most cases free online services for text recognition are suitable.

In this case, the entire operation takes place in two stages: first, text recognition occurs in a program or online service, and then the text is translated using an online translator or an application installed on the computer. You can, of course, copy text from a photo manually, but this is not always justified.

Is there a way to combine two technologies in one place: immediately recognize and transfer a test from a photograph online? Unlike mobile applications, there is little choice for desktop users. But, nevertheless, I found two options for how to translate text from an image online in one place, without the help of programs and other services.

An online photo translator will recognize the text in the image and then translate it into desired language.

When translating from images online, pay attention to some points:

the quality of text recognition depends on the quality of the original image
In order for the service to open the picture without problems, the image must be saved in a common format (JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, etc.)
if possible, check the extracted text to eliminate recognition errors
the text is translated using machine translation, so the translation may not be perfect

We will use Yandex Translator and the Free Online OCR online service, which includes functionality for translation of text extracted from photographs. You can use these services to translate from English into Russian, or use other language pairs of supported languages.

Yandex Translator for translation from pictures

Yandex.Translator integrates OCR optical character recognition technology, with which text is extracted from photographs. Then, using Yandex Translator technologies, the extracted text is translated into the selected language.

Go through the following steps sequentially:

Log in to Yandex Translator in the “Pictures” tab.
Select the source language. To do this, click on the name of the language (displayed by default English language). If you don't know what language is in the image, the translator will start auto-detection of the language.
Select the language to translate. By default, the Russian language is selected. To change the language, click on the language name and select another supported language.
Select a file on your computer or drag a picture into the online translator window.

After Yandex Translator recognizes the text from the photo, click “Open in Translator”.

Two fields will open in the translator window: one with text in a foreign language (in this case, English), the other with a translation into Russian (or another supported language).

If the photo was of poor quality, it makes sense to check the recognition quality. Compare the translated text with the original in the picture, correct any errors found.

You can change the translation in Yandex Translator. To do this, turn on the switch " New technology translation." The translation is carried out simultaneously neural network and statistical model. The algorithm automatically selects the best option translation.

Copy the translated text to text editor. If necessary, edit the machine translation and correct errors.

Translation from photos online to Free Online OCR

The free online service Free Online OCR is designed to recognize characters from files of supported formats. The service is suitable for translation, since it optionally has capabilities for translating recognized text.

Unlike Yandex Translator, Free Online OCR achieves acceptable recognition quality only on fairly simple images, without the presence of foreign elements in the picture.

Follow these steps:

Login to .
In the “Select your file” option, click on the “Browse” button, select a file on your computer.
In the “Recognition language(s) (you can select multiple)” option, select required language, from which you want to translate (you can select several languages). Click on the field and add the desired language from the list.
Click on the “Upload + OCR” button.

After recognition, the text from the image will be displayed in a special field. Check the recognized text for errors.

Copy the text into a text editor. If necessary, edit and correct errors.

Conclusion

Using Yandex Translator and online service Free Online OCR can translate text into the desired language from photographs or pictures online. The text from the image will be extracted and translated into Russian or another supported language.

Often PC users are faced with a situation where they need to translate foreign text from a picture. Situations can be different: there is text in a photograph that needs to be extracted from the image and translated into another language, there is a photo of an important document whose text needs to be extracted, etc. Naturally, you can perform text recognition using the ABBYY FineReader program. However, this requires the program itself, high quality photo and performing not one operation, but several.

Step-by-step instructions for translating text from a picture online

These methods will be described exclusively for PCs. If you are using mobile phone, then the translation of the picture text can be done using other resources.

To translate text from a photo, you can use two resources: Yandex.Translator and Free Online OCR. We have already written about both the first and the latter. However, this time we offer you a solution on how to extract and translate text from foreign language according to photo. We recommend that you pay attention to several points:

The photo quality must be normal. If the picture is not clear, then the text will not be completely extracted;
The image format must be JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP;
The translation will be machine-based and therefore require manual correction.

The first example of translation from a photo is the use of Yandex.Translator.