TransPerfect has just launched TransPerfect TransImage, the iPhone app for, yes, translating. (Fun fact: TransPerfect was founded in an NYU dorm room by two business students, and is now one of the largest translation companies in the world!) The app, powered by Google Translate, can translate text from photographs or via manual input. So, let’s say you’re at a restaurant in Germany and you don’t speak or read German. You left your itty-bitty translation dictionary at your hotel — or you never brought an itty-bitty translation dictionary because now you have this app so you didn’t have to. What to order?
All you have to do is take a picture of your menu, adjust a border around the exact words you want translated with your fingers, and TransImage will translate the pic to your language of choice. (With this app, original “90210’s” Donna and Brenda could have avoided eating brains on their summer trip to Paris.) Or, type, in your own language, the name of the food you want for dinner, how to say “check please” when you can’t remember, or “What is your name? Can I buy you a drink?” Forget the universal language of love; enter the universally helpful iPhone app, and learn how to speak the same language as the people you’re interested in talking to.
Plus, TransImage recognizes a whopping 49 source and target languages! And the translation happens right away. Almost as soon as you’re done pressing go, or the check mark, your word or phrase has been translated. Foreign vacations will never be the same!
From what I can tell, it doesn’t sound too different from Android’s Google Goggles, but I have never tried GG myself. And what I do know is the iPhone version is awesome . . . and free. The question now is . . . is testing out this app enough of an excuse to go on an international trip?
