We scour the world of translation apps to bring you the best on every mobile platform
If you're looking for a free translation app for your
smartphone or tablet, you're likely to be overwhelmed by the number
available.
So rather than leaving you struggling with your French and confused over your Polish, PC Pro has waded through the apps on iPhone, Android and Windows Phone to pick out the best free translation apps.
Best free translation app for accuracy
Google Translate: Android, iOS and Windows Phone
When it comes to accuracy, Google Translate is still the best free
tool around, whether online or as an app. While it struggles with
longer, more complicated sentences, for quick phrase or word checks, it
still beats all the other apps tested.
It is also the most comprehensive of all the apps we tested; there
wasn't a single language it didn't recognise or couldn't translate.
Best free translation app for voice recognition
Speak&Translate: iOS
Speak&Translate is a great for speech recognition and translation.
Select your two languages from a sidebar, tap the flag of the
language you speak and say whatever it is you want translated. The app
will then show on the screen what it heard you say and read out a
translation, which it also displays on screen.
One of the major benefits of this translation app is the ability to
choose between different dialects of the same language - there are four
versions of English available, and two each of French, Spanish, and
Portuguese.
This is particularly useful for us Brits, as US-only English often gets confused by our plummy accents.
This app beat all the others when it comes to voice recognition. It
easily understood our test sentences, but when it did interpret us
incorrectly the first time, a second attempt was normally all it took to
set it straight.
Er, not quite...
Much better
The UI is also aesthetically pleasing and easy to use.
The only serious limitation is the range of languages - we couldn't
test any of the Indian languages - and the voice is very robotic.
Bizarrely, it also lists Afrikaans as "African".
Speak&Translate also struggled with longer, more complex
sentences. However, for simple "phrasebook" style translations it can't
be faulted and the accuracy of the translation was extremely high - even
the phrases it heard incorrectly first time were quickly translated
properly.
Best free translation app all-rounder
Bing Translator: Windows Phone
Bing Translator was far and away the best all-in-one free translation
app we tried - it's disappointing that it's only available on Windows
Phone.
The app takes phrases for translation via the keyboard, camera and
voice recognition, and offline packs can be downloaded and accessed when
you've got no internet connection - handy for when you're traveling.
Also, while not as comprehensive as Google Translate's list of
languages, it has a solid selection available, with a good geographical
range.
We found the camera function particularly cool, although you do have
to make sure you have the words lined up correctly to get a translation
that makes sense.
While it's great to have an app that is so comprehensive, including
offline functionality, our one complaint would be the voice recognition
aspect is limited to four continental European languages, plus US and UK
English.
Best free translation app for shortcuts
Translate Pro: iOS
Translate Pro is an easy-to- use app that can, like the other apps
reviewed here, be used for on-the-fly translation, but also features a
phrasebook-style menu down the left-hand side.
Categories include bargaining, ordering food and drink, travel, and
even romance - although we can't help thinking whipping out your iPhone
before asking "may I kiss you?" might break the mood a bit.
It's also easy to choose between any of the 50 languages available,
and to switch backward and forward between the selected ones.
The two main drawbacks of the app are only 11 of the languages in
Translate Pro's database are included in "phrasebook" format, and that
the number of characters you can enter is limited. This can leave you
with truncated sentences or words ("Neth" should be "Netherlands"), or
mess with the grammar of some languages a bit if you decide to break the
sentence in two.
Translation apps: the blooper reel
No translation app is going to be 100% flawless, even if it is generally very good.
Under Translate Pro, our comment to our Finnish co-tester that North
Korea was reportedly claiming to have won the World Cup was "mental" was
translated as "spiritual", while thanks to Google Translate we told our
Turkish co-tester someone had a court date, rather than a “trial” in
the sense of “testing out”.
And, with all the apps we tested as well as most online translation
tools, you do often get a "gist" translation, rather than a
grammatically perfect one - especially with longer sentences. But
considering how garbled machine translation used to come out, it’s a
testament to technology that these were the only howlers.
How we tested the best free translation apps
PC Pro tested a range of apps on iOS, Android and Windows
Phone with a native UK English speaker talking (and typing) to native
Arabic, Finnish, French, Hindi, Kannada, Spanish, Tamil, Telugu and
Turkish speakers.
We chose these languages to make sure there was a good range of
writing systems and grammars tested, not only western European
languages.
All apps were tested in all nine languages, providing the target
language was available, in order to provide a level playing field and
find the ones we think work best.
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