We were among the first to try out Google Translate’s AR translation feature, created in partnership with other partners — and perhaps best known for translating completely impractical things like British-German and Pashto-Danish. I think the entire world can use a little help in these times, and Google is working hard to make its translation platform even more powerful, and a valuable tool.
The Korean translation was excellent, but it’s not as simple as simply translating English into Korean, and vice versa. It helps to know what your audience needs to be understood. When you enter Korean, I made my request in English. I could use that language to do the translation in AR — which is neat — but because I was talking to my team, I wanted the Google translator app to understand that. Here’s how I navigated the conversational process:
I started the conversation with a question — I wanted to talk to the people with whom I work. I assumed my audience would include the Korea residents who work on Google Translate products here in offices around the world. They would need to know my name, and in the language I speak. When people understand my intentions, I asked if they’d like to hear a translation. We broke it down: Can they imagine me as this person in their language, should they think of me as the entity that lets me translate, and what’s my way to be that entity?
I offered my card number and in Korean “eok man” (“love you”). After providing the space and context for the conversation, I began to attempt a sentence:
