self contained translator app

nye307 · 07-17-2010, 10:36 AM

Can anyone suggest a translation app that does not require internet access to work? A couple of my friends have apps like this for their iphones/itouch. I have two that work alright but require internet access which does me very little good now that China Unicom has cut me off for not paying my bill (they didn't work well enough to get me through that exchange and holding up 500 yuan and pointing at my contract didn't seem to work either). It will do even less good on the next stops of my globe trotting as international 3g plans are like waaaay out of my budget. At the moment I just need standard Mandarin that shows both the pinyin and characters. Also it's probably important to include that the internet access in China is beyond slow and Wifi is hard to come by, so I probably will only get one shot at this.

nye307 · 07-19-2010, 09:31 AM

bump. seriously, if anyone has any ideas on this it would be a huge help to not have to purchase a few hundred dollar translating device that I then have to carry around on me.

nye307 · 09-02-2010, 01:51 PM

Slightly trolling, but 100% true at the same time and completely deserved. I have asked and bumped and asked again and nobody on this forum can tell me. A paid translator app that does not require internet access. Does this exist? I'm in Korea now, and they only have CDMA and yearly contracts. In China it was a matter of 3g being spotty, now I'm just screwed. The iPhone has 3 apps for Mandarin alone. It even has one that supports writing Chinese characters and then recognizes and translates them! Yet according to the lack of responses on this forum, Android doesn't have a single one for even European languages? I mean, that's really pathetic. That is probably the single most useful function a smart phone could provide for anybody traveling abroad. If Android doesn't have an app that easily hundreds of thousands, more likely millions of travelers would pay a good 20 bucks or more for (I would drop $50 in a heartbeat right now), how many other apps is it missing? As much as I think Google is the greatest organization in the world at the moment and I hate following the crowd I've really been regretting my purchase the past few days.

bmullan · 09-02-2010, 04:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nye307

Slightly trolling, but 100% true at the same time and completely deserved. I have asked and bumped and asked again and nobody on this forum can tell me. A paid translator app that does not require internet access. Does this exist? I'm in Korea now, and they only have CDMA and yearly contracts. In China it was a matter of 3g being spotty, now I'm just screwed. The iPhone has 3 apps for Mandarin alone. It even has one that supports writing Chinese characters and then recognizes and translates them! Yet according to the lack of responses on this forum, Android doesn't have a single one for even European languages? I mean, that's really pathetic. That is probably the single most useful function a smart phone could provide for anybody traveling abroad. If Android doesn't have an app that easily hundreds of thousands, more likely millions of travelers would pay a good 20 bucks or more for (I would drop $50 in a heartbeat right now), how many other apps is it missing? As much as I think Google is the greatest organization in the world at the moment and I hate following the crowd I've really been regretting my purchase the past few days.

I did a quick search for "android translation" and "android voice translation" and found quite a few apps? Where did you look.
First, there is Android Google Translate?

Use Google Translate to instantly translate text between > 50 languages. Featuring:
* Dictionary results
* Text-to-speech
* Voice input
* Romanization (e.g. Pinyin, Romaji, etc)
* History/star favorite translations
Google Translate v1.1.1 Application for Android | Tools

Then there is Tungs:
TUNGS Voice Translator v1.4 Application for Android | Communication

and then more...

ConveyThis Translator
ConveyThis is a translation app developed for mobile devices running on Android platform. It was originally developed for translating web pages instantly by placing a widget on them. It can be freely downloaded from the Android Market (listed under Communication applications) and installed using the online instructions.

ConveyThis can translate words and phrases from and into forty languages and there is audio option available through the ‘Play’ button. The source language can also be ‘auto detected’ by the app. The application is powered by Google and Eyes Free.

Trippo Mondo Voice Translator
This free Android app can handle translations in 28 languages with voice support (marked *) in 15 of them. The languages are English*, Spanish*, French*, German*, Italian*, Japanese*, Russian*, Dutch*, Portuguese*, Greek*, Arabic, Urdu, Simple and Traditional Chinese*, Hindi*, Bulgarian, Danish, Thai*, Hebrew, Hungarian, Norwegian, Persian, Polish*, Pashto, Romanian, Somali, Serbian, and Hausa.

The app also supports SMS/Email and text-to-speech translation, and can be used a language learning tool. The translations can be shared through SMS, email and tweet. Though not 100% accurate, this app will however be found useful while traveling. .

You might even find this app useful when traveling...?
Google Goggle
This is a novel Android app that uses optical character recognition (OCR) techniques to identify words in photos etc. and then translate them into a language of our choice! Here is how this app works:

Point the phone’s camera at the word or phrase like in a hotel menu etc.

You can draw a box around specific words of interest using the region of interest button.

Press the shutter button of the camera and Google gives you the option to translate the captured text by selecting the source and target languages.
In addition to text, Google Goggle can also identify images, barcodes, logos etc. They can be used to find location, shopping etc.

Currently the version 1.1 running on Android 1.6 or higher can do English to Spanish translation and also in 3 other languages viz. French, Italian and German and supports only Latin based characters.

Work is under way to include non Latin based languages like Arabic, Chinese, and Hindi etc. and also improve the quality of optical recognition and translation. This free app can be downloaded from the Android Market.

jonno2k · 09-02-2010, 04:44 PM

It sounds like you've found a way to become rich! Seriously, if there are no apps out there doing what you want that a million people would pay $20 for, you should write one. With $20M in revenue, you could even pay somebody else to write one and come out ahead.

Personally I'd ask why aren't there any apps like it for Android. Perhaps the number of people willing to pay is a lot fewer than a million and the amount a lot less than $20. Perhaps there's no business plan... yet. Android is catching up but there are a *lot* of iPhone users out there, which makes for a better business case for spending money on development.

Once I was upset that my truck wouldn't go through swamps because that would be the most useful thing a truck owner would want. Then I realized there are better devices for specific uses like that and I bought a boat.

**SliceBurgSlim** · 09-02-2010, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonno2k

Once I was upset that my truck wouldn't go through swamps because that would be the most useful thing a truck owner would want. Then I realized there are better devices for specific uses like that and I bought a boat.

Lostviking · 09-02-2010, 07:16 PM

If you call having 100 apps that do the exact same thing destroying. I don't.

svenner · 09-02-2010, 09:49 PM

Translate this. Wait or buy an iPhone. Not trying to be rude but cmon android devs will pick up any slack once the platform is as renowned as the iPhone. We're lucky to have this great alternative os imho!

nye307 · 09-02-2010, 10:18 PM

Svenner: 等待或购买iPhone. Works great when you have an internet connection!

So all I had to do was flame the phone to get a bunch of responses, although in all fairness only one of them was worth anything. Maybe it's not the phone, it's just that this is a terrible forum. I haven't tried Convey This, but Google translate requires internet access as does Google Goggles. If Trippo does voice translation that is definitely going to require 3G or Wifi, I'm going to try it asap. This is the key part: DOES NOT REQUIRE INTERNET ACCESS. What part of that does nobody get? Although on a side note if Goggles can translate Spanish to English that's pretty sweet, and I'm going to use it a lot when I get back to South Florida.

Jonno, you write the code I'll bankroll you. I get 60%. I don't want to have to carry a separate device which costs hundreds of dollars and is significantly larger when simply choosing a different brand would have allowed me to avoid that.

I agree that it may be different in ten years but it's not NOW. Wait or buy an iPhone is exactly my point. I'm not going to postpone my trip for five years because my smartphone of choice wasn't available so I should have bought the iPhone.

Lost, name one of those 100. Please. Seriously, you have no idea HOW badly I want to be proven wrong and for you guys to be able to legitimately call me a d-bag.

Sliceburg, my question has not been answered yet and I'm still on solid ground with my original statement. I see you have well over 1000 posts. Clearly if you have that many posts on a forum like this and can't answer a simple question with anything but emoticons you're using it mainly for social purposes. So definitely laugh before reading through the entire post, it will make you look good. What will make you look better is proving that you're more knowledgeable than I am and answering my question before you flame me senseless. If you can do that I'll eat my words and say something ridiculous about sliceburg rules or something.

keithdiggs01 · 09-02-2010, 11:48 PM

You should change the thread title to "iOS destroys Android on apps" as it will be a bit more accurate. BTW iOS has had a couple years head start on Android so there is a bit of catch-up to do.

07-17-2010, 10:36 AM	#1
nye307 Junior Member Member #9416 Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 8 Phone: Nexus One Carrier: China Unicom	self contained translator app Can anyone suggest a translation app that does not require internet access to work? A couple of my friends have apps like this for their iphones/itouch. I have two that work alright but require internet access which does me very little good now that China Unicom has cut me off for not paying my bill (they didn't work well enough to get me through that exchange and holding up 500 yuan and pointing at my contract didn't seem to work either). It will do even less good on the next stops of my globe trotting as international 3g plans are like waaaay out of my budget. At the moment I just need standard Mandarin that shows both the pinyin and characters. Also it's probably important to include that the internet access in China is beyond slow and Wifi is hard to come by, so I probably will only get one shot at this.

09-02-2010, 01:51 PM	#3
nye307 Junior Member Member #9416 Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 8 Phone: Nexus One Carrier: China Unicom	iPhone destroys the Nexus One on apps Slightly trolling, but 100% true at the same time and completely deserved. I have asked and bumped and asked again and nobody on this forum can tell me. A paid translator app that does not require internet access. Does this exist? I'm in Korea now, and they only have CDMA and yearly contracts. In China it was a matter of 3g being spotty, now I'm just screwed. The iPhone has 3 apps for Mandarin alone. It even has one that supports writing Chinese characters and then recognizes and translates them! Yet according to the lack of responses on this forum, Android doesn't have a single one for even European languages? I mean, that's really pathetic. That is probably the single most useful function a smart phone could provide for anybody traveling abroad. If Android doesn't have an app that easily hundreds of thousands, more likely millions of travelers would pay a good 20 bucks or more for (I would drop $50 in a heartbeat right now), how many other apps is it missing? As much as I think Google is the greatest organization in the world at the moment and I hate following the crowd I've really been regretting my purchase the past few days.

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07-19-2010, 09:31 AM	#2
nye307 Junior Member Member #9416 Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 8 Phone: Nexus One Carrier: China Unicom	bump. seriously, if anyone has any ideas on this it would be a huge help to not have to purchase a few hundred dollar translating device that I then have to carry around on me.

09-02-2010, 04:44 PM	#5
jonno2k Senior Member Member #5388 Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 362 Phone: Nexus One Carrier: Rogers	It sounds like you've found a way to become rich! Seriously, if there are no apps out there doing what you want that a million people would pay $20 for, you should write one. With $20M in revenue, you could even pay somebody else to write one and come out ahead. Personally I'd ask why aren't there any apps like it for Android. Perhaps the number of people willing to pay is a lot fewer than a million and the amount a lot less than $20. Perhaps there's no business plan... yet. Android is catching up but there are a lot of iPhone users out there, which makes for a better business case for spending money on development. Once I was upset that my truck wouldn't go through swamps because that would be the most useful thing a truck owner would want. Then I realized there are better devices for specific uses like that and I bought a boat.

09-02-2010, 07:16 PM	#7
Lostviking Junior Member Member #10576 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: San Diego Posts: 19 Phone: N1, what else? Carrier: ATT	If you call having 100 apps that do the exact same thing destroying. I don't.

09-02-2010, 09:49 PM	#8
svenner Member Member #5808 Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 76 Phone: Nexus One Carrier: Bell Mobility	Translate this. Wait or buy an iPhone. Not trying to be rude but cmon android devs will pick up any slack once the platform is as renowned as the iPhone. We're lucky to have this great alternative os imho!

09-02-2010, 10:18 PM	#9
nye307 Junior Member Member #9416 Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 8 Phone: Nexus One Carrier: China Unicom	Svenner: 等待或购买iPhone. Works great when you have an internet connection! So all I had to do was flame the phone to get a bunch of responses, although in all fairness only one of them was worth anything. Maybe it's not the phone, it's just that this is a terrible forum. I haven't tried Convey This, but Google translate requires internet access as does Google Goggles. If Trippo does voice translation that is definitely going to require 3G or Wifi, I'm going to try it asap. This is the key part: DOES NOT REQUIRE INTERNET ACCESS. What part of that does nobody get? Although on a side note if Goggles can translate Spanish to English that's pretty sweet, and I'm going to use it a lot when I get back to South Florida. Jonno, you write the code I'll bankroll you. I get 60%. I don't want to have to carry a separate device which costs hundreds of dollars and is significantly larger when simply choosing a different brand would have allowed me to avoid that. I agree that it may be different in ten years but it's not NOW. Wait or buy an iPhone is exactly my point. I'm not going to postpone my trip for five years because my smartphone of choice wasn't available so I should have bought the iPhone. Lost, name one of those 100. Please. Seriously, you have no idea HOW badly I want to be proven wrong and for you guys to be able to legitimately call me a d-bag. Sliceburg, my question has not been answered yet and I'm still on solid ground with my original statement. I see you have well over 1000 posts. Clearly if you have that many posts on a forum like this and can't answer a simple question with anything but emoticons you're using it mainly for social purposes. So definitely laugh before reading through the entire post, it will make you look good. What will make you look better is proving that you're more knowledgeable than I am and answering my question before you flame me senseless. If you can do that I'll eat my words and say something ridiculous about sliceburg rules or something.

09-02-2010, 11:48 PM	#10
keithdiggs01 Member Member #10677 Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 76 Phone: N1 - CM6 Carrier: TMO	You should change the thread title to "iOS destroys Android on apps" as it will be a bit more accurate. BTW iOS has had a couple years head start on Android so there is a bit of catch-up to do.

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