Google today announced updates to its Android and iOS Translate apps that make having real-time conversations between two different languages much easier. First, Google Translate now lets users instantly translate text using the camera.

When the camera is pointed at signs or text in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, or Spanish, it will instantly overlay the words in English (and vice versa). Previously, users had to take a picture to get text translation. Now translation occurs in real time. Further, Google has improved the performance of its real-time conversation mode, which allows two people to speak directly to one another using different languages. The app can recognize when two different languages are being spoken and translate them back and forth during a face-to-face conversation. Google said the new versions of Google Translate for Android and iOS should arrive in the next few days. Google pointed out that this is the first time it has offered some of the advanced features -- camera and spoken translation -- to the iOS app.

Google Translate is free.