Lesson 294 · 2 min
Translate a menu with your phone camera
Point your phone at a menu and AI can read it, translate it and explain the dishes, as long as you double-check anything about allergies.
Many translation apps and chatbots can now read text in a photo. That reading step is called OCR. Combine it with a chatbot and you get more than a word-for-word translation: you can ask what a dish actually is, whether it is spicy, or what goes well with it.
This works both ways. A visitor in Hà Nội can photograph a menu with bún chả and bánh cuốn, and you can do the same with a menu in Seoul or Bangkok. Ask for a short description of each dish, not just its name.
Photos are where it slips. Handwritten boards, curly fonts and glare make the AI misread words. And a translation can miss an ingredient. If you have an allergy, ask the staff directly. A short phrase card written in the local language helps.
Do it now
Read a menu in two minutes
- 1. Take a clear, straight photo of a menu in good light.
- 2. Upload it to a chatbot that accepts images and use the prompt below.
- 3. If you have an allergy, ask it for a polite sentence to show the staff in the local language.
Read this menu photo. For each dish, give the name, a one-line description, the main ingredients and whether it is likely spicy. Mark anything you could not read clearly. Then write a polite sentence in the local language saying I am allergic to [food].
Quick check
Words from this lesson
- OCR
- Turning text in a photo or scanned page into editable, searchable text.
- Multimodal
- Able to work with more than one kind of input or output, such as text, images, sound and video together.