My phone helps me with many things in my daily life (in fact, the least thing I do is making calls), but it becomes indispensable when I travel. And when I go to a different place like China, everything changes: public transport, excursions to get to know the surroundings, shopping and even conversations because the server speaks four words of Chinese and it is not very common to find local people who can defend themselves against the British: I went to China and my cell phone helped me get lost, shop, communicate and so much more.

First of all: Google Maps is offline

There is no working roaming here in China and even with my eSIM card I experience occasional drops and slowdowns. Considering that we couldn’t understand each other linguistically, I didn’t understand the signs either, and as a last resort I couldn’t even use Uber (there’s something similar here called DiDi), I took no chances and went straight for it Download Shenzhen area to my Google Maps accountThis allowed me to use it without a SIM card, regardless of my coverage area, or even with another mobile phone I took with me while traveling.

To download maps via Google Maps, open the app, tap on our profile photo and click ‘Offline maps‘ > ‘Choose your own map‘. I then had to limit a box that only covers Shenzhen and surrounding areas (the larger it is, the more megabytes it takes up, but it’s not an excessive size in any case):

For this reason, no matter what and as long as you have your mobile phone with you With enough battery to power up and work, I have access to a complete map to know where I am and how to get to my destination

Google translator to help me understand

Google Translate is not something I use very often in my daily life, as I prefer other apps like Elhuyar (the excellent Basque dictionary) or Itzuli for my learning of Basque, I don’t even install the app on my personal mobile phone (an iPhone). However I was fortunate to have Google Translate for my trip to China..

Yes, it is important to have Google Translate on your mobile phone, but the best thing to do before you travel and to be prepared is to download the language, which I did before leaving Madrid. This is how we heal ourselves in the face of poor coverage, lack of Wi-Fi and other mishaps. While the application is open, we go to the bottom area that says ‘Translate‘ and there we find the language in question (simplified Chinese in my case) and tap the download icon. Finally, we confirm and tap ‘ again.Discharge‘.

Throughout my trip, I came across Chinese words and signs, Google Translate was of little use to me because I couldn’t write them, but what was useful to me was being able to write something in Spanish and translate it. . I can do it this way show the screen so the locals know what I want to say and so I can see how something is pronouncedI both read it and have Google Translate pronounce it for me by tapping the speaker icon.

Google Lens to read signs

When Google Translate can’t help me because I can’t put Chinese characters on my phone, Google Lens comes to my rescue. Enough Open the app, tap ‘Translate’ and hover over the Chinese sign: It can be in a store like the images in the example, or it can be on restaurant menus, public transportation signs or signs I find on the street.

You don’t even have to worry about choosing the language, because Google automatically detects it for you (but if it’s difficult, you can help by selecting it yourself). He even translated the messages on t-shirts in stores for me.

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