Google Translate now supports over 100 languages

Google Translate is turning ten this year and to celebrate coming of age it has added 13 new languages to its translating capabilities.

When the service launched in 2016, it could only translate between English and Arabic, Chinese and Russian. From today, 103 languages will be covered which includes 99% of the online population, according to Google.

The 13 new languages add 120-million new people to the billions who can already communicate with Translate all over the world, Googles notes.

Late last year, Google announced that more than one million people speaking 117 languages had made 50-million contributions through the Google Translate Community.

The 13 new languages that have been added are Amharic, Corsican, Frisian, Kyrgyz, Hawaiian, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Luxembourgish, Samoan, Scots Gaelic, Shona, Sindhi, Pashto and Xhosa.

Read more: Memeburn’s 3-minute look at the updated Google Translate app

“No matter what language you speak, we hope today’s update makes it easier to communicate with millions of new friends and break language barriers one conversation at a time,” the company said.

The way Google explains its process to adding a new language, it involves the basic criteria that it must be a written language, have significant amount of translations in that language and a combination of machine learning, licensed content and Translate Community.

Google Translate is not quite done yet. With the International Mother Language Day on 21 February 2016, it is encouraging more people to get involved in the Translate Community.

“To start, just select the languages you speak; then choose to either translate phrases on your own or validate existing translations. Every contribution helps improve the quality of translation over time. You can also share feedback directly from Translate.Google.com, so as you try out the new languages, we’d love to hear your suggestions,” the company said in a blog post.

The new update will be rolling out over the next few days.