Be honest. That just blew your mind a little, didn’t it?

There are several other language translation apps for smartphones, but Word App is the first one that translates word by word. Simply point your iPhone camera at the text and it  translates from one language to another and back in real-time. The app translates word for word, without detailed grammar or contextual considerations, so it’s not well suited for translating books or long sections of text, but for your basic sign or menu reading in a foreign country, you can’t do much better.

The app is available on iOS for free, and each language pack costs $4.99. Currently, the publishers offer Portuguese to English, German to English, Italian to English, French to English, and Spanish to English individual packs.

What Sparks Our Fire: Technology bridging language gaps in an innovative and interesting way.

Do you see this as a useful tool?