Kakao has updated their online translation service (https://translate.kakao.com) to better match the offerings of Google and Naver. It's still called "Kakao i" and in a beta version, but it works. The interface is still only in Korean, but it is very easy to intuitively use.
Really it's just a revamped and rebranded version of the old Daum translator but several new features have been added.
You can now translate between:
This lets you hover over the words and the corresponding part in the original/translation will be highlighted in blue. Useful for comparing, learning, and checking. Pretty similar to other translation services.
Switch your resulting Korean translation among 기본문체 (base form), 높임말 (formal), and 예사말 (common).
To be honest here, I'm not entirely impressed with the quality of the translations currently offered.
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| Sample translation inside the new Kakao i Translate |
Really it's just a revamped and rebranded version of the old Daum translator but several new features have been added.
Additional languages
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| More languages in Kakao Translate |
You can now translate between:
- Korean
- English
- Japanese
- Chinese
- Dutch
- German
- Russian
- Malaysian
- Bengali
- Vietnamese
- Spanish
- Arabic
- Italian
- Indonesian
- Thai
- Turkish
- Portuguese
- French
- Hindi
Word matching
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| Word Match in Kakao Translate |
This lets you hover over the words and the corresponding part in the original/translation will be highlighted in blue. Useful for comparing, learning, and checking. Pretty similar to other translation services.
Formality settings
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| Formality settings in Kakao Translate |
Switch your resulting Korean translation among 기본문체 (base form), 높임말 (formal), and 예사말 (common).
Translation quality
To be honest here, I'm not entirely impressed with the quality of the translations currently offered.
Take a look again at the simple sample I just did:
This is the Kakao translator. It is pretty simple to use. Thank you for reading this post.
The weather today is warm and sunny, although I am inside on a computer like every single day of my life.
이 분은 카카오 번역가입니다.사용하기가 꽤 간단합니다.이 글을 읽어주셔서 감사합니다. 나는 매일같이 컴퓨터로 컴퓨터 안에 들어가지만, 오늘 날씨는 따뜻하고 화창하다.
Seems a bit clumsy and awkward. I always hate commenting on Korean translations because I am not a native speaker and I myself speak Korean in clumsy and awkward ways (luckily most people find it endearing in a waygookin like me). But this sure seems less than ideal, not least of all because the Kakao translator is clearly not a human being as it is claiming to be.
For comparison here is how the same few sentences get translated in Google:
카카오 번역가입니다. 사용하기가 매우 쉽습니다.이 게시물을 읽어 주셔서 감사합니다.
오늘 날씨는 따뜻하고 햇볕이 잘 드는 데, 비록 내 삶의 모든 날과 같은 컴퓨터 속에서도 그렇습니다.
And in Naver's Papago:
카카오 번역기입니다. 그것은 사용하기에 매우 간단합니다.이 글을 읽어주셔서 감사합니다. 오늘 날씨는 따뜻하고 화창합니다. 비록 나는 내 인생의 모든 날들처럼 컴퓨터 안에 있지만.
Seems to me like Google actually wins in this case, although none of them really correctly understood me (at least Naver knew I wasn't talking about a person). It seems like my sticking that "although" in the second clause threw them off. Plus they all seem to have missed the fact that me being "on" the computer just means I'm using it. I am not literally on top of or inside my computer. Whoops!
Kakao mini "Translate Talk"
You can also click the little Talk button in the top-right to get a little mini chatroom style translator. This is also what you can access as a "One box" result tool when searching either Daum or the KakaoTalk "#" service for "translator" ("번역기")
Here it is in action on the translate.kakao.com website:
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| Kakao's "Translate Talk" chatroom-style translator |
And here it is inside the KakaoTalk app, which is a little clumsy to get to. Is there some faster way I'm missing?
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| Translate Talk inside KakaoTalk |
Note that you can access this directly at https://translate.kakao.com/m which could be worth bookmarking in your phone.
No standalone app (yet)
From a Korea Times article, it looks like they agree that it's still a Beta level product, and as of yet there is no standalone app.
The company has been coming up short in the translation market, which emerged as a test-bed of global IT firms' artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. It launched first translation service as a beta service in September 2017, which means it is not complete.
"We are considering launching a translation app, but it is yet to be decided," a Kakao spokeswoman said.
Kakao goes after Google, Naver in translation service
I'm probably fine with that, as I already have Papago and Google Translate on my phone. With this, plus the good old Hancom MalangMalang translator, it sure seems like there are more Korean translation apps out there than there is interest in translating Korean. So take your pick, or just suck it up and take a GoBilly class already.
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