Beyond Unreadable Overseas Sites | I Tried a Fantasy Trip to Southern France with Immersive Translate [PR]

If I have the chance to try out a fun tool, I might as well go on an overseas trip.
…is what I would like to say, but I don't actually have any plans for an overseas trip.

I don't have any, but I have often engaged in "fantasy travel" where I pretend I've gone somewhere.

Looking at maps, finding places to stay, and researching local food.

Setting aside whether I actually go or not, the time spent planning a trip is fun in itself. Come to think of it, I've only ever done fantasy travel within Japan. Oh, right, I was blocked by the language barrier, so my fantasies had their limits.

This time, I decided to try the AI translation service "Immersive Translate," and I had an idea.

Instead of just listing the translation features in order, I'll use this as my "sidekick" to travel to a land I've never been to.

Once I decided that, the destination is… Southern France. Bonjour!

There are too many things you can't understand from photos alone.

The first thing I looked for was an auberge that seemed to be in the countryside of Southern France.

Oh!
This place looks good!

Old buildings.
Wooden tables.
Local food and wine.
It would be amazing if I could just stay there.

If I'm just looking at photos,
"This place has a great atmosphere. Let's go" is what I'd think.

I don't think there are many people who can actually fly overseas just based on that, though.

However, when you search in Japanese, reservation sites and Japanese summary articles appear first. While they are convenient, I wanted to read the information written by the establishment itself.

So, I opened what appeared to be the local official website.
Naturally, it's in French.

I am using Immersive Translate as a Chrome extension. It is a type of tool that, once added to your browser, allows you to call up translations from the screen when you open an overseas site.

Usually, I would just look at the photos and return to reality.

This time, I tried pressing the Immersive Translate icon displayed on the screen.

Click.

That was all it took.

This time, I didn't need to select the source language myself, copy any text, or move to a different page; just by pressing the icon once, the Japanese appeared below the French.

Once I could read it, my travel fantasy felt closer to reality

Even with just photos, you can get a sense of the atmosphere. But when you can read the text, what you see changes a little bit.

What kind of food do they serve? What kind of guests do they want to attract? Can you stay there, or is it just for dining? What changes depending on the season?

When you can read that kind of information, what was just a "pretty place" suddenly feels closer to your own plans.

Whether I actually go or not is another matter. I'm not going this time. It's just a fantasy.

Even so, being able to read pages that I couldn't before made my travel fantasy feel a little closer to reality.

Getting a glimpse of the local atmosphere through videos too

Once I was able to read overseas sites, I found myself wanting to watch some videos as well.

A market in Southern France. Local cuisine. The voices of people walking through the streets.

Unlike photos or text, videos have an atmosphere of their own. However, even if I can vaguely understand the visuals, I don't know what is being said. So, I also tried the video subtitle translation feature of Immersive Translate.

With subtitles, videos that I was just watching passively become something I can follow a little bit to understand 'what is being introduced'.

However, regarding videos, I also got the impression that how it looks depends on whether the original video has subtitles and how the person is speaking.

Therefore, for me, it feels more like a feature to add a little sound and atmosphere to my travel daydreams rather than for intensive study.

This is fun in its own way.

Being able to look through PDFs that I couldn't read before

When looking for travel information, I surprisingly often come across PDFs.

Tourist guides.
Facility introductions.
Equipment lists.
Price lists.
Access information.

If it's a web page, I can just go ahead and read it on impulse.
But when it comes to PDFs, I usually get a little guarded.

'I'll read this later.'

That's what I think, and then I usually never read it.

This time, I also tried the PDF translation feature of Immersive Translate. What was good about actually using it was being able to follow the meaning of the items while looking at the layout of the original document.

For example, a facility guide PDF.

Documents listing facilities, services, payment methods, accessibility information, etc., cannot be understood from photos alone.

But when you understand the meaning of the item names,

'Oh, I can use a card here.'
'There is also Wi-Fi information.'
'There are also facilities for children.'

I can pick up the things I want to confirm.

I'm supposed to be just daydreaming about a trip, but when it gets to this point, it starts to feel a little more real.

If I'm staying, I check this.
If I'm eating, I look at this.
If I'm going, I check the access.

Even though it's a fantasy trip, my checklist is strangely serious.

On the other hand, I also got the impression that the appearance of PDF translations varies depending on how the original document was created. In brochures with many tables and icons, the layout may break slightly after translation.

Rather than reading it as a perfectly formatted Japanese brochure,

"What does this item mean?"
"What is written here?"

I felt that using it to confirm these things suited me better. The value of a translation tool isn't necessarily just about creating beautiful Japanese documents.

First, being able to read it.
Being able to reach the necessary information.
Being able to check it without closing the page.

For documents like facility guides, that alone is a huge help.
I can finally look through PDFs that I had closed, thinking, "I'll read this later."

For me, that alone was a sufficiently useful feature. Immersive Translate supported me properly in that regard.

About Immersive Translate

I've written about taking Immersive Translate on my fantasy trip to Southern France, so finally, I'll introduce the tool itself a little bit.

Immersive Translate is an AI translation tool that supports the translation of web pages, PDFs, video subtitles, and more.

The official website introduces features such as website translation, PDF translation, video subtitle translation for YouTube and Netflix, online meeting translation, image translation, and manga translation.

This time, the method I mainly tried was using it as a Chrome extension.

If you install it in your browser, you can trigger translation from the page when you open an overseas site. The official documentation also provides guidance on how to install it from the Chrome Web Store.

The three main points I touched on in this article are these.

• Reading overseas sites while comparing the original text with the Japanese translation

• Display subtitle translations on videos to get a feel for the local atmosphere.

• Translate PDF documents to check facility information and payment methods.

In particular, for those who want to read official overseas websites and tourist information on their own, the ease of use of web translation is quite reassuring.

It's not just for travel research; when you want to check service description pages, local shop guides, or longer articles, it lets you take one more step before you think, 'I can't read this, so I'll close it.'

For me, Immersive Translate isn't a magic tool that translates everything perfectly, but rather a partner that helps me avoid stopping in front of pages I couldn't read.

You can check the official website here.
Immersive Translate, explore the world in Japanese

It's not over yet! I found BabelDOC

...And so, the article was supposed to end here. But I found it.

The PDF I read with PDF Pro was helpful enough to grasp the overall picture of the document.

I can see the photos.
The icons remain.
I can read the text to some extent, too.

For standard text-heavy PDFs or documents where you just want to check the content roughly, this alone is quite helpful.

However, in documents with many tables and icons, the Japanese text sometimes didn't fit within the frames. So, when I was looking for an option to read without breaking the layout a bit more, I found it...

I found it.

BabelDOC.

Immersive Translate has a PDF translation feature called BabelDOC, separate from PDF Pro.

I was able to grasp the big picture with the PDF Pro I was using until just now.
But when I had BabelDOC read the same guide PDF, the impression changed.

This tool offers both bilingual PDFs and translated PDFs.

A bilingual PDF is a format where the original text is on the left and the translation is on the right.
A translated PDF is a format that can be read with only the translated text.

At first, I wasn't interested in the translated PDF.
It was here that I finally realized something.

The anxiety I felt when looking at the translated PDF,
I think, wasn't just,
"I'm anxious because the original text isn't next to it."

What I was really afraid of was,
the anxiety that "maybe some information is missing?"

Even though I should have been able to read it, I still felt like I was missing something.

Business hours.
Closed days.
Prices.
How to make reservations.

The information you want to check before a trip is the kind that is detailed and problematic if overlooked.

That's why, when I saw that the information remained until the end with BabelDOC, I felt more than just relief that it was "translated cleanly."

This is quite helpful as travel documentation.

To make it the start of a journey

The value of translating a PDF wasn't just that "foreign languages become Japanese."

The information needed before a trip remains properly until the end.
When I was able to confirm that, I was finally able to read the material in front of me with peace of mind.

Here is the Immersive Translate I tried this time.

🎁 To those who have read this far 🎁

If you would like to try Immersive Translate, you can use the coupon code "meimei" to get 9% off eligible plans.

Also, as an additional benefit, if you enter the same code "meimei" on the official exchange page, the first 15 people can redeem a Pro weekly membership trial.

Coupon code "meimei"
Exchange page:https://immersivetranslate.com/ja/exchange/

※The Pro weekly membership trial can only be redeemed once per account.
※Benefit details and terms of use are subject to change. Please check the official website and exchange page for the latest information.