Here’s how I started talking to people on RedNote Xiaohongshu (小红书) without knowing Mandarin.
Well, everything started when I first showed Smart Keys to my psychologist friend, Javad Salehi Fadardi, he hit me with a question I didn’t see coming: “Can it translate other people’s messages?”
“No,” I said, feeling pretty confident. “That’s impossible.”
Then he hit me with one of those classic psychologist one-liners designed to keep you up at night: “What makes you believe that?”
I had no answer. But the question burrowed into my brain and refused to leave.
Around the same time, I started getting DMs on Instagram from users asking for the exact same feature.
Dozens of them. At first, I brushed it off. Smart Keys wasn’t built for translating conversations in languages you don’t understand, it’s meant to help you sound fluent in languages you kind of already know.
But last week, I was checking out RedNote Xiaohongshu (following TikTok refugees) and decided to strike up a conversation with someone in Chinese.
That’s when it hit me: struggling through copying and pasting user’s messages while trying to have a real-time conversation is painful. That was it. The final push. I couldn’t ignore the signs anymore.
So now, Smart Keys can translate other people’s messages and suggest responses. All in just one click. It works with screenshots, photos, you name it. Just update the app to the latest version, go to Settings > Keyboard Options, and enable Screen Translator.
Big thanks to Javad for planting that seed of doubt and curiosity.
This one’s for you.
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