Google Translate has been an extremely useful tool for trying to figure out what certain websites are saying, what other people are saying, and also a good way to communicate when you’re on holiday in a foreign destination that does not speak your native language. So far Google has covered most of the major languages spoken around the world, but it seems that they’re still not done.
In an announcement by Google, it seems that they had updated the Translate service with 13 additional languages. This includes Amharic, Corsican, Frisian, Kyrgyz, Hawaiian, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Luxembourgish, Samoan, Scots Gaelic, Shona, Sindhi, Pashto and Xhosa, which brings the number of supported languages to 103.
According to Google, the addition of the 13 languages basically brings an additional 120 million people into the fold, and with over 103 languages supported, Google estimates that this covers 99% of the online population. Note that this isn’t the world’s population as there are plenty of places in the world that do not have internet access and also have their own language.
Google points out that this is largely thanks to the use of machine learning. According to them, “As we scan the Web for billions of already translated texts, we use machine learning to identify statistical patterns at enormous scale, so our machines can “learn” the language.” In any case the new languages should already be available, so check it out if you’re so inclined.
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