I am going to assume most of us have used Google Translate for most of our internet lives for one thing or another. And for good reason. Google has absolutely dominated the Western world and most other places too. However, Google Translate in my opinion, isn’t always accurate when it comes to most languages. Papago doesn’t only translate to English but I will only be talking about KOR to ENG in this post because I can only speak English natively and very little Korean. Living in Korea now for a total of 4 months (not linear, but altogether) I have noticed countless times that Google Translate can be SO wrong it’s almost painful to look at. Now I’m not blaming Google, these languages are definitely hard to translate into casual/native style. But I have found an app that definitely makes it better for Korean to English and that is Papago. Papago is ran by Naver Co. and if you don’t already know what that is I’ll let you in on it. Korean people don’t use Google for the large majority. Naver is essentially the Korean version of Google. It’s their search engine, navigation, everything we use in Google and more. Now you’re thinking, it’s made by Koreans of course it would be the better app to use? But what sets Papago apart besides that crucial fact is the other applications within it.
What I absolutely love about Papago is that it isn’t just a translation app. Within Papago there are four ways to translate. Voice, Conversation, Image and Study Camera all give you different ways to translate for whatever situation you are in when you need it. But Papago also features an Edu Beta, Website Translation, Offline Translation, a Phrasebook, Word Cards, and something called Papago Mini. Let’s dive into a few of these.
This is what the side bar looks like when you open it inside the app.
This is Papago’s phrasebook. It gives you all kinds of situations to choose from in which you may need help during converstion, asking for something, looking for something and even ordering food etc.
Papago’s Edu Beta (also used with Word Cards) is essentially helping you memorize and learn within the app as well. Not only is Papago looking to act as a translation app here but they are also trying to build up to help you memorize and learn the language too! I have yet to personally test Edu myself but I cannot wait to put it to the test in the future!
The last part I want to talk about here is Papago’s ‘Papago Mini’ section! When you click Papago mini you will see this ‘LIVE’ section at the top of your screen in which you can exit the Papago app and copy and paste text to actively translate while having another application open! And you can tap the text bar to get rid of it without having to open the Papago app again!
I hope anyone looking to learn Korean or even just people visiting Korea reach for Papago instead of Google Translate. I have yet to see a translation/learning app that does it the way Papago has like this. In my experience with the app it is so much more accurate. Not even just to me. My fiance who is a Korean native (and the one who introducedme to it) likes to use it instead of Google as well and can confirm (in his opinion as a bilingual/Korean native speaker) that it is just overall the better translation app. And with all of the extra goodies that come with it I really hope you find it enjoyable and useful to you! Please leave comments to tell me how you like Papago instead! Use it on another language other than Korean as well! I hope you also enjoyed this post! More interesting things coming. See you soon! xoxo
DeomesWriting 