Microsoft Translator is a free app, available for Windows, iOS and Android. Why you should be careful: Youdao’s language offering is limited to Chinese-English and it often generates too literal word-by-word translations. It also offers integration with WeChat, China’s most popular chat service. Why you’ll love it: Youdao Dictionary is especially targeted at Chinese users. Unlike other language apps, it also offers additional information about the use of English, as well as culture, fashion and sports. Youdao Dictionary offers over 350,000 words, phrases and meanings of English. Youdao Dictionary is a well-known language service in China that fills the void of the blocked Google China. Why you should be careful: Not all translation combinations give good results or are even supported at all. Why you’ll love it: Baidu Translate provides very fluent translations, especially for longer and more complex sentences.
Smaller than a typical smartphone, the handheld translation device can also be used as a portable Wi-Fi router and is able to operate on networks in 80 countries. In September 2017, Baidu launched a portable talking translator that can listen and speak in several different languages. The Baidu Translate app supports 16 languages. Baidu has a built-in voice-based translation functionality, which allows you to search on your smartphone through voice commands. Just like Google Translate, Baidu Translate is based on the use of neural networks, which results in very fluent translations. In absence of Google in China, Baidu is the country’s best known internet search engine.
Although, the translations are not necessarily wrong, the lack of UK or US sources is suspicious. We thought the whole idea of presenting examples was to give a broad overview of how a word is used. When we search for a translation from Dutch to English, the English example sentences mainly come from Dutch or European (.eu) sources, which is a bit dodgy. Why you should be careful: We can’t help but suspect that the Linguee sentence corpus, is limited. This way, you can see how a word or an expression is used in different contexts. When prompted for a particular word, Linguee will show you multiple, bilingual sentence pairs that are actually used in online publications.
Why you’ll love it: Different word contexts result in different translations. Unlike many other translation apps, Linguee has a search engine that provides bilingual sentence pairs from a large database. The Linguee language service was launched in 2009. And with only seven European languages in its portfolio, you probably won’t use it for your next world trip. Why you should be careful: Although web-based, DeepL is not available as an app. Why you’ll love it: DeepL offers very fluent translation, especially for longer and more complex sentences. DeepL translation is based on neural network techniques, which is why it provides translations that appear to be far more natural and human sounding than most translation apps. Here are seven of them.ĭeepL launched in 2017 as a spin-off of Linguee, another well-known language service (see below). Yes, there are other translation apps, tools and websites out there, some of which offer a very good alternative to Google Translate. Granted, Google Translate does not always generate perfect translations, but with its recent upgrades and addition of neural machine translation techniques, Google has made a huge step forward.īut occasionally, it pays to look over the giant Google wall. The Google Translate app even offers a way to translate pictures or handwriting by connecting with your camera. Whether you are traveling in Iceland, chatting with your Chinese girlfriend, or trying to order a Tikka Massala in Mumbai, these seven translation apps and websites will help you out.įrom all translation apps out there, Google Translate is probably the best known.
So, when a quick translation is due, your smartphone will offer relief. Nothing beats a flesh-and-blood translator, but unfortunately, people are not so easy to carry around in your pocket.