Welcome to the second video of my Google Travel Tips Series.
In this video, we’re focusing on Google Translate for travel.
Plus, learn how to backup your travel photos with Google Photos.
Hey friends, I’m Tasia, and welcome back to my YouTube Channel where I share tech tips,
app reviews, and a metric TON of Google tips.
In today’s video, we’re going to dive into how I use Google translate for travel
- did you know you can use Google translate offline?
It’s true!
Plus I’m showing you how I backup photos with Google Photos while I’m on a trip and
snapping pics of anything and everything.
Let’s go!
Many of us know the basics of Google Translate, but there are a few hidden features that can
really help when it come to travel.
So let’s jump into my favorite Google Translate for travel tips.
I think Google Translate is one of the most helpful apps if you’re traveling to another
country where you don’t speak the language.
With that being said, Google Translate tip number 1: download languages for offline translation.
Sound familiar?
If you recall from the first installment of our Google Travel Tips series, (point) you
can easily download Google Maps for offline navigation.
Well, you can do the exact same with Google translate.
Woowoo!
So here’s how to use Google Translate offline.
From your Google Translate app, tap the settings gear, then select Offline translation.
Here, you can tap the plus symbol to add your desired languages.
So, if you’re traveling to Italy - you can simply scroll or search for Italian, then
select ‘download’.
Once you’ve downloaded all the languages you want, this is also where you’ll be able
to upgrade a language or delete a downloaded language to free up space.
This is super helpful if you don’t have wifi or a great data package.
This way, you’ll always be able to translate to and from that downloaded language.
Perfetto!
So, that’s pretty cool and helpful right?
And, of course you can translate by text or voice, so physically speaking into your device,
but that’s so basic.
Back in the day, if you wanted to have a conversation with someone, you’d have to speak into your
device, then hand it over to that person, then they could reverse the translation and
speak into your device and hand it back and oh boy what a headache.
Which brings us to Google Translate tip number 2: use the Conversation feature!
In recent years, Google Translate has stepped up its voice recognition and translation abilities
and now includes the option to translate a live conversation in real time - heck to the
ya!
So here’s how it works.
Simply tap on the ‘conversation’ option in google Translate and if you don’t have
your desired languages already set, you can set them here.
Translate will listen for both languages and translate in real time as a person is speaking.
I swear to you this is the coolest thing!
So this is my husband and I mimicking a little meet and greet in Italian and English and
look, Google Translate is doing all the work for us as we speak to eachother in different
languages.
WOAH.
The future is here and it is amazing.
But in all seriousness, this is incredibly helpful if you’re trying to have a conversation
with someone and you need help understanding them or translating what you’re saying.
This now gives you the ability to have a free flowing conversation with someone else, even
if neither of you speak the others language.
Can I get an AMEN?
So as cool as Conversations are, let’s move on to Google Translate tip number 3: translate
via your camera.
This is really helpful if you’re out at a restaurant and you don’t understand a
single thing on the menu because you don’t speak the language.
Or if you need to read a short term rental agreement.
Not a problem anymore!
So, ensure you’re translating from the required language, then just tap the camera icon and
align the lense to whatever it is you’re trying to read.
Google Translate will instantly translate the document for you as you are viewing it.
Now this is very cool, but you can also scan a document from here too, which allows you
to tap word by word for translations.
And finally, you can also import an image into Google Translate too.
So if you were out and about and took a photo of a sign but don’t know what it said, you
could upload that here and Google Translate will translate it for you.
Rounding out my Google Translate tips for travel is tip number 4: use the transcribe
feature.
This is really handy if you’re in a lecture or a play or somewhere where there is a continuous
single audio source.
Just tap on the transcribe option, and instantly, Google Translate will listen for that language
and transcribe the audio in real-time for you.
So those are my favorite Travel tips for Google Translate, so now let’s move on to Google
Photos.
Specifically, how to back up Photos with google photos.
Google photos is one of my favorite parts of the google ecosystem.
It is my go-to app for backing up my photos and videos, as well as photo and video storage.
Currently, Google Photos is free and offers unlimited storage.
However, that is going to change this summer.
In June to be exact.
So start backing up all your photos and videos now while it’s still free.
But that’s neither here nor there.
Rather, I want to focus on how I use Google Photos to backup my photos while I’m traveling.
So here’s how to backup photos and videos with Google Photos in two easy steps.
Step 1: If you’re totally new to Google Photos, you’re going to want to give Google
Photos permission to access your photo library and back up and sync your photos from any
device.
Step 2: in your photo settings section of the Google Photos app, select the backup and
sync option.
You’ll want to ensure that is toggled on of course, since that is how to backup your
photos and videos, but down at the bottom here, we’ve got some options on when to
back up.
The two options are to use cellular data to back up photos and videos.
I recommend keeping these options toggled off.
Here’s why.
With the Google Photos app, your photos and videos from your smartphone will automatically
be backed up.
So, if you’re traveling and have a limited data plan, you definitely don’t want to
eat up data by backing up photos and potentially large videos automatically.
Because think everytime you snapped a photo while out on your trip, it would start syncing
to Google Photos.
That could create quite the large data bill, one photo of the Statue of David at a time.
So, with these toggled off, your device will sync and backup photos and videos as soon
as you’re back on wifi.
Another side note here is that sometimes, on iPhone at least, I have to open the Google
Photos app in order for new photos and videos to auto-sync to the app.
So when I’m traveling and I get back to my Airbnb or hotel that has WiFi, I’ll pop
into my Google photos app and all my photos and videos from my day will automatically
sync to Google Photos.
That way should something happen to my device, they’re all on the cloud already.
But that’s not all.
You’ll be able to access your entire photo and video library from the app on your smartphone,
or from your desktop.
To access your backed up photos and videos from a desktop, head to your Google Apps icon
near the top right of your Gmail, drive, or calendar, tab.
Then just select Google Photos and it’ll open a new tab for you.
Alternatively, you could sign in to your account via photos.google.com.
And you’ll have access to the same backup as your mobile device here too.
Keep in mind, you can create albums in Google Photos, as well as share any images or videos
directly from Google Photos.
These are great ways to organize all your media from one trip as well as share the memories
you’ve made.
And if you want even more info on Google Photos, check out my other video here.
And remember to check out all the other Google Travel Tips videos, as this is just one in
a series of videos designed to enable you to travel with ease.
So what do you think about using Google Translate for travel?
What do you think of how I use Google Photos to backup all my trip photos?
Let everyone know in the comments below.
As always, thanks so much for watching, if you liked this video, I want to know so give
it a like, a share or leave that comment below.
You can click right about here to subscribe to my channel and right here and here for
more Google Travel Tips.
Thanks for watching, and see ya next time!