Google Translate allows phonetic typing

Google Translate has added another great feature that allows people with boring old western keyboards to type other scripts phonetically. You should see a button that says ‘Allow phonetic typing’ for Russian, Hindi, Serbian, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Chinese, and Urdu (with probably more to come). After you select it, all you need to do is type in how the words sound, and it will give you the most likely words in your selected language. Whenever I’ve had to use a special script or a language with specific special characters, I’ve had to change the language settings on my computer, remember where special keys are, or remember the key combinations. Now it can all be done with the help of good old Google.

If you want to translate your own language into one with a non-Roman script, Google also provides a ‘Read phonetically’ option, which will allow you to know (basically) how the words are spoken. Very handy if you want to read anything in Armenian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Georgian, Greek, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Maltese, Russian, Serbian, Thai, or Ukrainian.

To learn more, check out the Google Translate FAQs.