How to translate phrases using Alexa and Google Home

With the many things the Amazon Echo and Google Home can do, it's no wonder phrase translation is on that list. But how do the two devices compare when it comes to translating from English to other languages?

How to translate sentences using Alexa

To translate words or phrases with Amazon Echo you can use basic phrases like:

“Alexa, how do you say [phrase] in [language] ?”

Some of the languages that worked for us included Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Swedish, Korean, and Italian, and the translations are powered by Bing.

If you want to access a longer list of languages, you'll need to enable a Just bought an Amazon echo? Download these 15 essential Alexa skills! Just bought an echo from amazon? Download these 15 essential Alexa skills! Alexa, the virtual assistant that powers Amazon's Echo line of speakers, is getting smarter every day thanks to a growing number of skills. Here are 15 skills everyone should enable as soon as they unbox their… Read More:in this case, the Translated skill. To do this, you can just say “Alexa, enable Translated.”

Translated claims can be translated into more than 30 languages, but in many cases (Arabic, Hungarian, Icelandic, Flemish, and many more), an error message appears. Some of the languages that worked include Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

For languages where the skill actually works, the following voice commands can be used with Alexa:

“Alexa, open Translated.”
“Alexa, I ask. How do you say? [phrase] in [language] .”
“Alexa, ask. [phrase] in [language] .”

You can make it repeat or slow down the phrase.

How to translate sentences using the Google home page

To translate words or phrases using the Google home page, just ask the smart home device what you mean:

“Hello google, how do you say [phrase] in [language] ?”
“Hello google what is [phrase] in [language] ?”

Languages supported by Google Home for translations include French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Turkish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Chinese.

Languages that are not yet supported include Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Amharic.

Alexa vs Google Home:which is better?

Unsurprisingly, given the large number of Google translation services, the overall experience, translation accuracy, and pronunciation were much more successful with the Google Home service.

The Alexa Translated app just doesn't say what it says it can do, and Alexa's translations, whether they use the Translated skill or not, are extremely choppy.