When talking about translating something online, most people will immediately think of Google Translate. Although it can put quite a disastrous twist on the translation, Google Translate is still the fan favorite mainly because of a severe lack of competitors. That is not the case all over the world, as Asian countries prefer other translation services and even search engines, so Google isn’t king of the hill everywhere.
Those that are in need of a good means of communication with people from China, Korea or Japan as an English speaker might be interested to know that there is an alternative to Google Translate which is currently garnering a strong popularity within these countries. It has been recorded that the new app Papago managed to rake 2 million downloads. Papago is created by Naver, the company that used to own Line Messenger. Let’s take a look at what are some key differences between Google Translate and Papago.
When tested with various challenges, both translation services have displayed mistakes, but interestingly enough, there is a noticeable pattern. Right from the start, it must be mentioned that neither service manages to fully translate the message given to it.
Google Translate seems to have a stronger English game whereas Papago does a lot better in reverse, excelling in the Asian department. When you take a phrase in English or Korean and expect the software to translate it in the other language, the two will excel as aforementioned.
This means that while not perfect (actually, far from it), Google Translate might still remain the best choice for those that know English and are looking to translate something into Chinese for example. However, if a Chinese or Korean gentleman comes along and wants his sentence translated into English, Papago will probably be the way to go. When it comes to software that uses only intuition to correctly guess how words should be translated, the programmers will naturally give their native language an unintentional boost since they are more prolific with its idioms and different meanings for words and phrases. This shows significantly in services like this and completely alters the experience.
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