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Support translation via installed translater app
Closed, ResolvedPublicFeature

Description

Feature summary (what you would like to be able to do and where):

In the Chrome browser I can select a word and get a popup allowing to translate with installed translator apps, for instance Google Translate, DeepL and dict.cc. In the mobile Wikipedia app for Android it's impossible to use a translator app, which makes the app completely unusable for any serious language learner.

Use case(s) (list the steps that you performed to discover that problem, and describe the actual underlying problem which you want to solve. Do not describe only a solution):

Helps people to educate themselves.

Benefits (why should this be implemented?):

Helps people to educate themselves.

Event Timeline

I'm afraid this is not something we can control. If the translator app is correctly integrated into the system, then it will appear automatically in the context menu when selecting text. Here is how it looks on my personal device, which is running Android 11:

Screenshot_20220919_090148.png (2×1 px, 385 KB)

This behavior may vary in different versions of Android, or even different device manufacturers. If the Translate option appears in Google Chrome, it's likely because Google Translate is another Google product, and Chrome is specifically aware of its presence on the system.
Is the "Translate" option available in other apps (other than Chrome) when you select text?

Translation through Google and Yandex is available in Firefox.

+1 user:
I can't use the Google Translate application to translate the pages.

When I select some text and click rm translate, nothing happens.

I've already checked the application settings, and also tested the translation on other pages, and it translates normally. Soon, the Google Translate application is working.

Please check this issue. On my old device I didn't have this problem. But I don't think it's logical that this is the problem, the new device.

+1 user:
Hello, please tell me why Google Translator stopped working in the Wikipedia application. It works well everywhere except your application (I tried reinstalling everything, rebooting, etc.)

JTannerWMF subscribed.

@ABorbaWMF did some further looking into this and discovered:
there appears to be a setting on Google Translate that one needs to use to get it to work in apps. I'm not sure if it is on every platform yet, but it is present on Pixel. I had to:

  • go to the Google Translate App,
  • tap the settings/profile button, tap Settings,
  • Tap to Translate,
  • turn on the Tap to Translate toggle, and
  • turn on the "Show floating icon" toggle.

Now when highlighting text in the Wikipedia App, I see a small floating circle with the Google Translate logo.