Visual translator app Waygo adds Japanese to its slate

Waygo, a mobile app that instantly translates Chinese characters into English just by hovering a smartphone camera over them, has now added Japanese to its slate. This should prove useful for those who travel to Japan but get utterly lost when trying to decipher menus or instructions on vending machines for example. The Waygo app, currently only available for iOS devices, now translates Japanese characters into English text without requiring a data connection. All you have to do is simply hover over the characters. Ryan Rogowski, the CEO and co-founder of Waygo, says that the company is focusing on Asian markets “with the goal to make translating quick and easy for even the most challenging languages.”

A Waygo trial gives you 10 free translations a day, but to get unlimited translations you need to fork out a one-time fee of $6.99. For those who are simply taking a short holiday to Japan or China, Waygo also now offers a $1.99 ‘tourist package’ for one week of unlimited translations. In July last year, Waygo received $900,000 in seed funding as it sought to expand its supported languages and move beyond iOS, while in November it added a nifty feature to teach users how to pronounce Chinese characters. Japanese is a welcome addition, but an Android app would probably help it attract even more users. ➤ Waygo | iOS Thumbnail image via Perati Komson / Shutterstock.com