Tools 4 Overseas Boatbuying - Language Translators

[mogulskibum]

Another vote for Google translate on an Android phone. You can download a language, and it will work off-line, no internet connection needed - and they've been enhancing the off-line services.

A few years ago the only thing you could off-line was enter text and it would give you the text translation. To do picture or voice translation one needed to be online.

Now, you can do translations via the camera off-line in a bunch of different languages (full list here). The camera translate is very cool. You put the text in front of the phone's camera, and it literally translates the text on your screen in real time (so the menu, sign, whatever on your screen literally changes from x foreign language to your language - point your phone at something else, and it translates it).

I *think* it will speak its translations when off-line, but (as of now) it won't do voice recognition so you (or the other language speaker) can't speak into it and have it translate for you. But it will do that if you have an internet connection.

I honestly can't decide which is a better travel app: Google maps or Google translate. It's that useful.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by mogulskibum

...

I honestly can't decide which is a better travel app: Google maps or Google translate. It's that useful.

They are a great combination for boating related travel. And Google Maps offline capabilities have been improved. Very accurate throughout Central America now. If you have an Internet connection it will also do real time traffic routing...very handy in chronically congested places like Panama City.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Good to know gents, thanks. Any tip on which one(s) to use for translating things like contracts, or medical documents? Given that both medical text, & legalese are seperate languages entirely on their own. Even in english.

[FilBrown]

With mobile phones being popular I find taking photographs and/or video of the parts you need repairing useful.
You can also usually find and download a picture of what it looked like before it broke.
A picture can say a thousand words! 😁

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by FilBrown

With mobile phones being popular I find taking photographs and/or video of the parts you need repairing useful.
You can also usually find and download a picture of what it looked like before it broke.
A picture can say a thousand words! 😁

Yes, more effective than playing charades in a foreign language.

You can also look up the name of the part in the necessary language, but...dialects vary a lot on hardware. For example, vocabulary relevant to hardware stores is very different in Guatemala vs Panama...with many items being called totally different unrelated names.

Spanish For Cruisers has good sections in common boat system parts.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Anyone have good tips on apps for; Dutch, German, Spanish, Italian, & French?
Yes, I know, it's a lot of languages. But you never know who you'll meet that you just KNOW would be interesting to talk to. Even if some of the best conversations take place while knowing little enough of one another's language I've had some great sailing friends like that. Where we had a marginal amount of spoken language in common.

[boatman61]

I use Google Translate.. not perfect but good enough for most things..

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

Anyone have good tips on apps for; Dutch, German, Spanish, Italian, & French?
Yes, I know, it's a lot of languages. But you never know who you'll meet that you just KNOW would be interesting to talk to. Even if some of the best conversations take place while knowing little enough of one another's language I've had some great sailing friends like that. Where we had a marginal amount of spoken language in common.

Google Translate does em all...long list of languages.