Google Translate celebrates its 20th anniversary! Translating 1 trillion words per month, Taiwan's most frequently used language combinations revealed.

作者：陳冠榮

  Source of the first image：shutterstock

2026 is a special year for Google, as it marks the 20th anniversary of Google's presence in Taiwan, and Google Translate, which has long accompanied people across language barriers, will also reach its 20th anniversary.

Google Translate was one of the early experiments in Google Research's machine learning research. In 2006, Google relied on "statistical machine learning," but in 2016, Google pioneered the shift to neural networks, breaking through the limitations of word-for-word translation. Now, it further utilizes the Gemini model to make translation even smarter and more practical.

Google Translate supports nearly 250 languages, covering 95% of the world's population, including endangered and indigenous languages. Currently, over 1 billion users translate using Google every month, with over 1 trillion words translated monthly across Google Translate, Google Search, Google Camera, and Draw Circle Search. This amount of text is enough for one person to read aloud continuously for 12,000 years, demonstrating that Google Translate has become an indispensable part of people's daily lives.

Helping Taiwanese people communicate across languages

Since Google Translate officially supported Traditional Chinese in 2007, it has accompanied Taiwanese people on their nearly 20-year journey of language exploration. The image below shows commonly used translation language combinations in Taiwan, reflecting the outline of cross-language communication in Taiwan :

  Source：Google

This list showcases the close interaction between Taiwanese people and the world through English, and highlights the frequent and deep connections between Taiwan and Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand in terms of work, study, and life. The high usage rate of Japanese translation demonstrates Taiwanese people's love for the information and culture contained within the Japanese language.

Great teammates for studying abroad, helpful assistants for learning

Google Translate has long been an essential tool for Taiwanese people traveling abroad. When on a foreign street, simply point Google Camera at a Japanese menu or Korean street sign, and the translated text will be perfectly overlaid on the screen, eliminating guesswork when ordering food or finding directions. Even in remote mountainous areas or places without roaming signal, there's no need to worry. You can pre-download the desired language in the Android and iOS apps for offline use. Google indicates that the top 10 most popular offline language downloads globally are: English, Arabic, Spanish, French, Japanese, German, Hindi, Chinese, Russian, and Italian.

Through Google Translate's Live real-time experience, personal headsets can transform into dedicated interpreters, not only preserving the tone and rhythm of the other person's speech, but also, with the support of the Gemini model, accurately translating even difficult idioms, local slang, and nuanced tones and contexts, such as common social media terms like "loser," "speechless," "laughing to death," and "awesome." Google also points out that currently about one-third of real-time translated conversations last for more than 5 minutes, meaning that language barriers are no longer an obstacle to face-to-face communication.

Google Translate is a helpful tool for many people to improve their language skills; about one-third of mobile device users use the Google Translate app as a language learning tool. Therefore, Google launched an AI-powered personalized conversation practice feature to help nearly half of weekly active learners practice speaking in real-world scenarios.

Google Translate has also become integrated into people's daily entertainment. For example, on Android phones, you can use the "circle search" function to translate, whether you want to learn about the hottest skincare steps in Korean beauty products or understand the true meaning of the lyrics of a popular K-Pop song. Simply draw a circle on the screen to search. In addition, Google has observed that more and more people are asking AI to "translate" text into emojis, making emojis a new generation's global universal language.