The language learner’s dream
There’s no denying the usefulness of Google Translate when trying to quickly check the meaning of an unfamiliar word or translate an entire sentence. One minor but bothersome issue is switching between your default keyboard to that of the foreign language anytime you have to type in Translate. The app's now getting a nifty update that should help solve that problem.
Google Translate’s recent update adds the ability for Gboard on Android to automatically switch your language when you input text in a language different from your default, per 9to5Google. Say you have English as your selected Gboard language. If you launch Google Translate and select Arabic, for example, as your “Translate from” language, Gboard will auto switch to the Arabic keyboard as soon as you open the text field to start typing.
Similarly, if you change to a different language, say Spanish, the Keyboard will auto-switch from whatever language it was in before to Spanish. Finally, Gboard will immediately switch back to your default language after you exit the translation screen. In the past, you could always tap the globe icon just to the left of the space bar if the language to be translated was one of your chosen system languages — otherwise, you had to go into Gboard settings to select it manually. This update makes things that much easier.
We can confirm that the feature is live on version 6.33 of Google Translate and is compatible with the current stable release of Gboard. You can download the latest version of Translate on APKMirror to try out the new auto language switch.
Google Translate has received several quality-of-life updates recently, especially with the app’s Material You revamp rolling out to non-Pixel users. Speaking of revamps, we’re still waiting for Google’s promised update that’ll improve "instant translation, captured image translation, and imported photo translation" on Android. We’ll update you once it arrives.
What other tools can help you learn a second or a foreign language?