Google Translate 4+

I’m not going to give a detailed review. The translator works pretty well for the languages I use. But some things it resolutely does not want to learn to improve and I’m not sure why. But I can’t go into that. I just want to ask about the continual problem with “Can’t add to history. Try again later.” Everything works fine with a new installation of the app, for a few weeks. Then these error messages start coming in with every translation. It’s super annoying because it’s a pop up that keeps you from doing what you thought you were doing, like copying the translation. So you go back into WhatsApp, say, to paste in the translated response, and instead you’re pasting in something you had previously copied, because your attempted copy didn’t take, because it was too busy telling you that it couldn’t add to your history for some unknown reason. It’s all so exhausting to describe, let alone to use. Just fix it, guys. All these things that just don’t work right are sapping our life blood away. Time waits for no one. Please fix.

Google Translate is now a form of augmented reality and is adapted for educational purposes. This application provides users with tools to translate between languages and they now include an image option; users take a photograph of a sign, piece of paper, or other form of written text and receive a translation in the language of their choice. This augmented reality is ground breaking because this allows online learners to access content in other languages. The application also translates spoken word in real time, which allows all learners to access audio in written form, in their own language, online or in-person.
This version of augmented reality that is adapted for education can be utilized in an online learning environment and can be utilized by instructional designers. One of the major challenges with instructional design is selecting the correct tools to build learning experiences. With this application, instructional designers are able to create a course in their own language and can make their lesson accessible to learners by recommending Google Translate for accessibility. I plan to utilize this in conjunction with my online lessons and videos in order to reach more students with diverse abilities and primary languages.

The Google translate app is a joke. There are very few apps that can lead someone to yell expletives while sitting in their kitchen trying to enjoy a cup of tea. Editing something you’ve written on the Google Translate App is a pitiful process filled with tapping the screen of your phone over and over attempting to unselect individual words or sentences. Sometimes it selects the entirety of what you’ve written and won’t allow you to unselect it without a fight. It’s unconscionable that the process for editing what you’ve written doesn’t follow every other smart phone format. Not only that, when you’ve finished writing of considerable length, in my case an email, and would like to highlight, copy and paste it, you will quickly realize you cannot highlight and scroll at the same time like you can on any other apple app that includes type. Instead, you’re forced to go through a ridiculous process of highlighting as much as you can see, pasting it, returning to the app, copying more and then pasting that. I repeated that process six time before I had copied my email over to gmail. If I had more time I would go into detail about the “define” tool that pops up unprovoked and further adds to the absolute farce that is the UX of this application. For a company like Google to have produced such a dysfunctional infuriating UI is truly shameful.