Summary
Google Translate
How it Works: Google generates a written translation for anything you type, speak, photograph, or draw on your touch screen. For nearly half of its supported languages, it also provides audio translations—this number is continually increasing. A new feature allows it to listen for two languages at once, offering real-time spoken and text translations for both sides of a conversation.
The Good: Google’s translations are impressively comprehensive; however, they can sometimes be clunky. For example, a French sign saying “Cedez le passage” translated to the English phrase “You do not have the priority.”
The Bad: Results involving Asian characters can be confusing; for instance, on a Chinese menu, “eggplant with basil” unexpectedly became “nine eggplant.”
Number of Languages: Supports 133 languages, with 70 offering voice translations (as of the last count).
Off-Line Capability: Downloadable translation packs are available for 60 languages.
Overall Assessment: While it may not be flawless, we greatly appreciate the breadth of languages available—and the fact that it’s free.
Free; Android, iOS
iTranslate
How it Works: This app goes beyond translating typed and spoken phrases; it allows users to adjust the speed of audio playback for better pronunciation practice. You can save translations for future reference by marking them as favorites or emailing them to yourself. Additionally, using Evernote to save translations can help create a personalized phrasebook.
The Good: Translations are quick and accurate. The ability to bookmark translations is a significant time-saver, eliminating the need to repeatedly look up the same phrase (e.g., “Is it spicy?”).
The Bad: Phonetic spellings for languages with unique alphabets, such as Hebrew or Arabic, can be quite challenging to pronounce accurately.
Number of Languages: More than 100, with 38 offering voice translations.
Off-Line Capability: You can translate between 38 languages offline without restrictions on language pairs.
Overall Assessment: This app excels at audio translations but lacks support for a broader range of languages with voice capabilities.
Subscriptions from $2.99; Android, iOS
Waygo
How it Works: Hold your phone’s camera up to any text written in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, and it will provide an instant English translation. The app retains a history of your translations and allows you to save favorites, making it easy to access important information, such as directions for a cab driver. The free app is limited to 10 translations per day, but an upgrade is available for unlimited use ($11.99).
The Good: The photo translation feature is highly efficient and accurate. For instance, it successfully translated “eggplant with basil” from a Chinese menu that confused Google Translate.
The Bad: The interface can be overly sensitive to movement, making it difficult to focus. Additionally, you are limited to viewing only a few translated words at a time.
Number of Languages: It currently supports three languages, with more planned for future releases.
Off-Line Capability: Most features operate offline, except for supplemental language packs.
Overall Assessment: Since you cannot translate English into other languages with this app, you may need to utilize additional translation tools.
Free; Android, iOS
