Both very useful and very buggy...
When it works, its great; when it doesnt, its terrible. I use this app for many languages. I dont often have problems with French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, or Korean. I have had continuous problems with Chinese, though. Sometimes, the language just disappears. Ill try to translate between Chinese and English using the microphone to speak and the Chinese option will disappear. Sometimes, it shows Chinese as an option but wont actually take spoken input. Ive had to close out of the app and restart it over and over again. This is a relatively new issue, but its very persistent and really hobbles the app. I havent had such issues with the camera feature for Chinese, nor have I had any issues with the written Chinese. Ive actually found both features very useful in my study of the Chinese language and my examination of Chinese characters that I find in books and on packaging. Im grateful for those great features. I really hope that the audio feature for Chinese is fixed soon. I have submitted reports to Google but havent heard anything back. Just be aware of this issue if using the app for Chinese. Double-click on the home button and swipe away the app to close it out and then restart it. That has helped me. Perhaps part of the issue is that Chinese is tonal? Other languages are not and theyre much easier to understand by ear when hearing a person speak. Perhaps that extends to the difficulty of making the app work with it? I have noticed that even when it works, sometimes its finnicky when recognizing certain tones. Its a great app, but this really needs improvement. I look forward to seeing what fixes updates bring.
hiru mirin about
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