Google Translate for Android gets offline language and vertical text translation support for Android 2.3+

Offline language packages include support for 50 languages. It’s simple to use them; simply select “offline languages” in the app menu and you’ll be given a list of languages that are available to download for offline use. To enable offline translation between two languages, you’ll need to select both of them in the offline languages menu.

If you’re on a cellular data connection with data limits, you may want to make sure you’re on a Wi-Fi connection before downloading any of the language packages. Some of the packages are as much as 200MB in size, so if you’re on a 5GB limit, it’ll eat through that in no time.

In addition to language packages, Google has incorporated vertical text translation. This feature will let you translate Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages with your camera by snapping a photo and highlighting the text with your finger. This feature was added to Google Translate late last year, but only for horizontal text.

Despite Google moving everything to the web, it’s great to see Google adding offline support for Google Translate specifically. There’s no doubt that offline language support will be helpful if someone is traveling and does not have access to the internet, such as tourists visiting North Korea.

You can grab the update, which brings the Google Translate app to version 2.6, from the Google Play Store now.