For an English-speaking visitor to
Asia —
which spans close to 50 countries — navigating a new language can be daunting
at first. A walk down a busy road in Malaysia, for example, may bring you into
contact with Malay; written Simplified Chinese; spoken Mandarin, Cantonese, or
Hokkien; Tamil, and perhaps even Hindi.
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But
while language can be a hurdle, it can also be a joy. We have collected some of
the best language apps and technology for travelers to Asia — from full-fledged
machine-learning translators to a simple tweak to your phone’s keyboard. With a
small amount of help, you can translate dozens of languages and scripts,
illuminate pictographs and characters, and learn something new.
Let your camera do the work
When I first used a translation app in Asia,
at the relative dawn of the industry (circa 2014), the only real option for
non-Roman characters was Waygo. I could point my phone camera at a menu or a
sign, it would take Chinese characters, Japanese kanji and kana, and
Korean
hangul, and instantly translate it to English on the screen. A feat, almost of
magic.
Since
then, the world of photo translation apps has boomed. The behemoth of
translation,
Google Translate, offers photo translation for Chinese, Filipino,
Hindi, Hmong, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Malay, Mongolian, Nepali, Tamil,
Thai, Uyghur, and Vietnamese. Microsoft Translator offers it for Chinese,
Japanese, and Korean. The Korean-made app Papago excels at Korean especially,
and also provides Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese.
Across
the board, photo apps are quick, functional, and generally offer decent
translations — especially of printed material. Google’s translator easily dealt
with a customs import form written in Thai, or a simple newspaper story written
in the Hindi script Devanagari.
Travelers
should also keep in mind that Google is blocked or otherwise hard to access in
mainland China, meaning that you may have to use one (or multiple) of the
alternatives.
Try ‘handwriting’ what you want translated
Some smartphone apps let you use your finger
to sketch any character you see — whether Chinese characters or Korean hangul —
to get a quick translation.
Character
drawing is useful for translating unusual fonts or reflective surfaces, which
can confound photo translation apps. Calligraphy, say, on a banner outside a
restaurant, can be more common in parts of Asia than a typeset sign. When I
tested it recently in Manhattan’s Chinatown, a shop window’s heavily laminated
sign would not register on Google’s photo app.
Google
Translate and Papago offer character drawing, but Google had an annoying habit
of inputting a character before you have finished fully drawing — which puts
you into a somewhat frantic race against time, and can radically change
meanings. (An initial translation for the Korean for “How much is it?” came out
as “Is it frozen?”)
Regardless,
to commit to character drawing is to sign up for some time spent scribbling on
your palm. The process works more smoothly for simpler scripts like Japanese
hiragana and katakana, and is more involved for
Chinese and some Korean hangul.
(Those traveling to Taiwan should remember that Traditional Chinese characters
are the standard, which are even more complex.)
The
kinetic process of handwriting in these apps can be good for an intermediate or
advanced language learner, who might want to learn characters in a more active
way while traveling. Those learners can try Pleco (for Chinese) and Kanji
Recognizer (for Japanese, Android only), which are essentially dictionary apps
and provide more detailed translations and shades of meaning.
A
useful tip: Some smartphones actually have handwriting as an installable option
in their keyboard settings. So while Microsoft Translator, for example, does
not have handwriting functionality, you can just use your keyboard to draw
characters into its standard text translate field, and it will work just the
same.
Speak up!
For those who prefer to talk, speech-to-text
(and text-to-speech) is offered on many of these translation apps, including
Google Translate, Microsoft Translator, Papago, and Pleco.
The app
SayHi — which has Cantonese, Hindi, or Thai, among other languages —
specializes in voice and audio, and can play your translation in a man or
woman’s voice and vary the speed. It also keeps a history of all your
translations, so you can replay a phrase you use often, like “I’m allergic to
seafood!” It even has a conversation mode: You select two languages, set the
phone down between two people, and take turns speaking back and forth.
Overall,
Google and
Microsoft worked fine, but would often halt after five or six
seconds while SayHi routinely managed 20 to 30 seconds at a time. This extra
listening time is often crucial to catch the half-sentences or general
confusion of a live voice translation.
The
real issue with voice-to-text is its practical value. In a busy cash-only rice
roll restaurant in Manhattan’s Chinatown, I used SayHi to ask if the cashier
had change for a hundred. The noise of banging sheet pans and steamers drowned
my phone’s microphone out; she ended up reading the translation off my screen
instead.
Learn the language
Any travel can be improved by memorizing even
a little bit of the local language, and there is an abundance of learning apps
to help. A few lessons in Korean and Japanese, for example, will teach you the
characters of hangul and hiragana, which will at least let you read things out
phonetically.
Duolingo
is the giant green owl in the room, but its Asian language courses are
generally less robust than its European ones. Beginners might have more luck
trying Lingodeer (for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese) or Memrise
(for Chinese, Japanese and Korean). Both use videos of native speakers, which
Duolingo lacks; Lingodeer also provides lengthy grammar lessons and explainers.
I
personally had the greatest success with Memrise, and learned about five
different characters of hangul in 30 minutes during a particularly long taxi
before a flight took off. However, be aware that Memrise and Lingodeer’s free
offerings are limited.
All
three apps can also be combined with the alternative keyboards mentioned
previously. So instead of just tapping on buttons, you can answer your Japanese
Duolingo prompts by drawing kana on your phone screen, which speeds up the
learning process.
For
other languages, the learning app Drops has a wider array that includes
Cantonese, Hindi, Indonesian and Thai.
Find online communities
Asia is a tremendously diverse place for
languages, and there is no one-stop shop to navigate all its regional
variations and dialects. Even a language like Cantonese, which has millions of
speakers across multiple countries, can be hard to find apps for.
Broadening
your toolbox can be key. One of the best ways to learn Cantonese, for example,
is a podcast. Search for CantoneseClass101 in your podcast player to find free
episodes, stretching back to 2014, that teach you basics in 10 or so minutes,
along with cultural background — such as the ubiquity of “m goi,” (唔該) which can mean “thank you,” “sorry” or
“excuse me,” depending on context. The similar podcast VietnamesePod101 has a
section on “survival phrases,” with which, in about eight minutes, I learned
not just “thank you,” but how to say “auntie” and “uncle” — probably the most
important words you can utter.
Another
great Cantonese resource is the subreddit r/Cantonese, which is full of people
who are passionate about learning and preserving the language and culture.
You can
also tap into the resources that other learners have already created for you.
Anki (on iPhone as AnkiMobile, on Android as AnkiDroid) is a general learning
app that lets you create custom flashcards — with custom recorded audio — and
has a rich library of community-created language sets that you can download.
You can choose a beginner’s set for Shanghainese with 1,500 cards, a set of
Thai tones and characters (complete with helpful mnemonics), a set of 33
Vietnamese foods — or make your own.
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