Google Translate

Google Translate is a <a href="/facts/Multilingualism/WgzhSW6h">multilingual</a> <a href="/facts/Neural_machine_translation/BsjdmTSt">neural</a> <a href="/facts/Machine_translation/DGF3NwuI">machine translation</a> service developed by <a href="/facts/Google/GT9Sugza">Google</a> to <a href="/facts/Translation/2foI82so">translate</a> text, documents and websites from one language into another. It offers a <a href="/facts/Web_application/BLkF3BIN">website interface</a>, a <a href="/facts/Mobile_app/r7vp6meo">mobile app</a> for <a href="/facts/Android_(operating_system)/nNyHb0xz">Android</a> and <a href="/facts/IOS/mK5cggH5">iOS</a>, as well as an <a href="/facts/API/GMlN4vUr">API</a> that helps developers build <a href="/facts/Browser_extension/jzkeh57V">browser extensions</a> and <a href="/facts/Application_software/YQuj7Kog">software applications</a>. As of June 2025, Google Translate supports 249 languages and language varieties at various levels. It served over 200 million people daily in May 2013, and over 500 million total users as of April 2016, with more than 100 billion words translated daily.
Launched in April 2006 as a <a href="/facts/Statistical_machine_translation/rzJ8Gfyj">statistical machine translation</a> service, it originally used <a href="/facts/United_Nations/fgXLnmgT">United Nations</a> and <a href="/facts/European_Parliament/H9WLUd1r">European Parliament</a> documents and transcripts to gather linguistic data. Rather than translating languages directly, it first translated text to English and then pivoted to the target language in most of the language combinations it posited in its grid, with a few exceptions including Catalan–Spanish. During a translation, it looked for patterns in millions of documents to help decide which words to choose and how to arrange them in the target language. In recent years, it has used a <a href="/facts/Deep_learning/JLuwD3ea">deep learning</a> model to power its translations. Its accuracy, which has been criticized[by whom?] on several occasions, has been measured to vary greatly across languages. In November 2016, Google announced that Google Translate would switch to a <a href="/facts/Neural_machine_translation/BsjdmTSt">neural machine translation</a> engine – <a href="/facts/Google_Neural_Machine_Translation/rxPs6yXU">Google Neural Machine Translation</a> (GNMT) – which translated "whole sentences at a time, rather than just piece by piece. It uses this broader context to help it figure out the most relevant translation, which it then rearranges and adjusts to be more like a human speaking with proper grammar".

Google Translate open-in-new

Google Translate