Before, when you were traveling to another country where you barely speak their language, your only options were to look for someone who understands you or to rely on those tourist guide books. But with the advent of both software and hardware to help us out, communication has become more convenient and in a sense, easier. The Microsoft Translator app now has a new feature wherein you can have a more natural translated conversation using just your smartphone or smartwatch.

While the app will still work on your smartphone, having a smartwatch to help you talk to another person without huddling over your phone is still much more convenient. Currently, it supports natural conversation in Chinese (traditional and simplified), English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. They promised to add more languages in the future, but if you’re traveling to places that speak those languages, or you yourself are a native speaker of any of them, then this app is already pretty handy.

So how it works is when you speak into your device, the app automatically translates it into words or sentences. If it’s too noisy, you can also just type the sentences and it will automatically translate it. The translations are synchronized on both your smartwatch and smartphone if you’re using both. You can bookmark some conversations for later use so you don’t need to say or type it again. The translation conversation history will also be tagged in whatever location you are in.

If you don’t have it yet, you can download the Microsoft Translator app for free from the Google Play Store. If you already have it, simply update your app to the latest version.

SOURCE: Microsoft