“Google Translate will use Google’s new Neural Machine Translation technology to translate between English and nine widely-used Indian languages — Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Malayalam and Kannada. Neural translation offers a huge improvement over the old phrase-based system, translating full sentences at a time, instead of pieces of a sentence,” a Google statement said at its launch in New Delhi.
Google said it expected improvements in the quality of translation in a single jump than seen in the last 10 years combined.
Google also announced the extension of Neural Machine Translation to Chrome browser's built-in Auto-Translate functionality to web content, making full-page translations more accurate and easier to read.
“The new translation capability will also be available to users on Google search and Maps to aid discovery of new places with translations of local reviews on Google Maps, both on mobile and desktop.”
“India today has 234 million Indian language users who’re online, compared to 175 million English web users, we expect another 300 million Indian language users to come online in the next four years,” Rajan Anandan, VP, India & South East Asia, Google, said.
For users who often switch back and forth between Hindi and English, they will also be able to use Hinglish language (a mix of Hindi and English) option with the new text editing tool that makes it easier to select, copy and paste, plus new options for resizing and repositioning the keyboard so it fits into the hand and texting style.
In January this year, Google had launched "Digital Unlocked" program to ensure every single small business in India that wants to go digital has access to quality training.
The Indian government expects $1 trillion plus digital economy in the coming 3-4 years which will have larger participation from local languages, local aspirations and local products.
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