GoKawiilHadlee Simons / Android Authority
TL;DR A recently released open-source app called PlayTranslate lets you play untranslated games in your language.
The app uses online or offline capabilities to translate in-game text to almost 60 languages.
The app was made with the aid of AI, though, and installing it requires users to briefly disable Google Play Protect.
There are tons of games over the years that never saw a release in English-speaking markets. We’ve seen fan translations for the most popular titles, but what if this option isn’t available for your desired game? Thankfully, a recently released Android app addresses this challenge for emulation fans and mobile gamers.
PlayTranslate is an open-source Android app that was quietly released on GitHub back in March, and it offers “real-time” language translation in your favorite games via an overlay. The app uses AI to read 23 in-game languages and then translate them into 59 languages. Translated tongues include English, Hindi, Spanish, Korean, and Russian.
The app was originally released a few months ago and has seen a variety of updates since then. These updates have delivered offline translations with the aid of locally downloaded AI models, text-to-speech functionality, flashcard functionality for language learning, and multi-screen translation.
A great idea, with two major concerns
Hadlee Simons / Android Authority
There are two issues that might deter you from using the app, though. Perhaps the biggest problem is that Google Play Protect blocks the app’s installation due to its sensitive permissions. More specifically, it records your screen and utilizes the “display over other apps” permission. You can temporarily pause Play Protect to install PlayTranslate, but I would caution less tech-savvy users to simply skip the app. In saying so, this is an open-source app, which means you can comb through it yourself if you’d like to check for security issues.
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