I didn't say they were better. Just that without Google Translate, I doubt you would have had a much harder time in your recent trip to Japan because you could have used them, and they aren't particularly worse :-).
I didn't say they were better. Just that without Google Translate, I doubt you would have had a much harder time in your recent trip to Japan because you could have used them, and they aren't particularly worse :-).
It's not just about whether you yourself use Google Translate, it's that - much more than anywhere else I've ever travelled - Japanese people will regularly use Google Translate to communicate with you, usually by typing or speaking into their tablet and then showing you the machine translation.
Actually in quite a few places there (mostly in Kyushu) they used a bespoke handheld device or DeepL.