
You still might not use Google Translate to translate a full document or novel (it can only translate up to 5,000 characters at once), but it’s perfect for those times when you get something random that you can’t read, and wonder what it says. It parses the context around the words and figures out the correct meaning from the scenario.

When translating phrases and full sentences, though, Google Translate is smarter. Give it a word, and it returns the most common translation-with substitutes and alternatives underneath. Google Translate works much like a dictionary when translating individual words. Today, Google Translate supports 103 languages with its latest neural machine translation. It scanned a wide range of translated websites and documents and used them to learn more languages and writing styles.

That let Google’s computers easily compare how the same things are phrased in different languages. The original version was built with statistical models from transcripts of United Nations and European Union sessions, each of which are translated into multiple languages. Like so much of what Google does, Google Translate is built from the internet’s plethora of data. And for that, Google Translate is more than enough. Most of the time, though, you only need something simple translated quickly. You could purchase translation software, something that might be worthwhile if you need to translate critical documents daily.

All it takes is a little clipping, copying, and pasting-with Google Translate and ClipClip. Computers may not be able to hold fluent conversations yet, but they do a rather great job at figuring out what we say. There are too many languages for anyone to learn them all, and even mastering the widely spoken business languages is more than most can manage. Customer support tickets and emails in languages you may not even recognize. Seemingly common French expressions you never learned. Whether you’re fluent in multiple languages or have only one language enabled in your computer’s keyboard settings, you’ll still sometimes come across text you can’t understand.
