You might have wondered if it’s ever possible to use the Google Translate application offline without any internet connection, well it’s very possible. Infact, the newest update of the Google Translate application now features supports of vertical texts in Korea, Japanese and Chinese with the camera of a smartphone and the support for Offline Translation is a big news.

But wait! Do not rejoice yet, you still need internet to use the Offline feature of the Google Translate application. What happens is you need to download the language pack of your choice for the offline feature to work. Afterall, how will the application translate a given text without having data to work with from it’s own algorithm which is what the language pack does.

To achieve the offline translation mode in the Google Translate application, you first need to download one of the 5 available language packs by heading to Menu >> Offline Languages and then click on the Pin icon which sits next to the exact languages you want to download. Clicking on this will show a prompt message asking whether to download the Google Translate Language Pack over Wi-Fi or Mobile Network….That choice is yours depending on which network you’re using to access the Google translate application.

The language starts downloading and progress can be tracked right under the installed section. Ones the download is complete, you can test it out by turning on your phone’s AirPlane mode and then start using the application offline as it will indicate that you’re using it “OFFLINE” right underneath a translated text.

While the offline translation of the Google Translate makes using the application as smooth as possible for example, if you are in a region with extremely terrible internet network and you need to communicate with the locales, this can save you the hurdle of gesticulating without passing any message across.

But also, do note that the offline functionality doesn’t mean it is in full state with the Online translation which synch with more updated versions of the languages you’re using.

Also, another bad news is that the Google Translate Offline mode only works on Android 2.6 and up for now while the versions for iOS isn’t available yet. Even Google hasn’t released any official statement about when we should expect one for the iOS platform.