Waygo App Launches First Visual Translator for Japanese

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwired – Mar 18, 2014) – Visual translation service, Waygo, today announced the addition of Japanese to its translation app. This new language will cater to the more than 10 million travelers visiting Japan each year, enhancing the travel experience by easily translating printed language. Japanese is the second language for Waygo — the app has been supporting Chinese since 2013. The Waygo app translates Japanese characters into English text without a data connection by simply hovering over the characters, finding the relevant text and creating sensible phrases.

With Waygo, a winner of the SXSW 2014 Accelerator pitch competition, simply point your camera and translate text instantly without a data connection. Users can translate multiple lines of text instantly or single lines for spelling and pronunciation. Any traveler or language learner can go like a local with Waygo. Visual translation is important for East Asian languages because it is extremely difficult for a tourist to search a dictionary for pictographic text without knowing its pronunciation.

“Based on demand from existing users we’re excited to launch Japanese and bring more languages to Waygo,” said Ryan Rogowski, CEO and co-founder of Waygo. “We believe everyone should be able to confidently travel anywhere in the world without language barriers. So our focus has been on the Asian markets with the goal to make translating quick and easy for even the most challenging languages. We hope to allow travelers more time to enjoy the adventure without worrying about communication barriers.”

Waygo launched as the only instant visual translator for Chinese in April 2013. The ultimate travel companion, Waygo works offline and allows users to translate languages faster than Google Translate. The free app is available for download in the Apple App Store.

About Waygo
Waygo is the leading visual translation service that changes the way tourists, language learners and business travelers experience China, the Chinese language, Japan and the Japanese language. Derived from the Chinese pinyin “wài guó”, or foreign country, Waygo uses a combination of optical character recognition and a translation piece to translate Chinese and Japanese characters into English text. Waygo instantly translates and does not require an Internet connection. More languages are being developed. Visit www.waygoapp.com.