What to look for
- Two-way conversation, not phrase lookup. The app should detect which of the two languages is being spoken and translate in that direction on its own.
- Hands-free. If you have to tap before each sentence, the other person stops talking. Auto-listen keeps the flow.
- Works with the earbuds you packed. Hand over one earbud and each person hears their own language.
- No app store detour. On a hotel Wi-Fi with a nearly full phone, a web page beats a 200 MB download.
- Predictable cost. A day pass for the days you actually travel beats a yearly subscription.
Situations it has to handle
Taxi and directions
Short turns, background noise, and a driver who won't wait. Put the phone on the console in auto-listen and let it take turns for you.
Restaurants and menus
Speak your question, and for the printed menu take a photo — the document translator reads text out of images and PDFs and gives you a price estimate before it starts.
Pharmacy and doctor
Accuracy matters more than speed here. Every turn is shown as text on screen as well as spoken, so you can check that what you said arrived as you meant it.
Calling ahead or talking to family back home
A remote room lets two people in different places talk, each in their own language, from their own phones — up to six people at once, with an optional captions-only mode.
About offline mode
Be honest with yourself about it: offline packs give you word lookup and simple phrases, not fluent conversation. Real-time spoken translation needs a connection. A local SIM or a cheap eSIM covers it, and roaming data for a few short conversations costs very little.
What it costs
You get free translations every day. Beyond that there is a day pass for a single trip day, a travel pack for a whole trip and a monthly plan for frequent travellers — prices are shown in your own currency on the pricing page.
Where to start
Pick your two languages, put in your earbuds and start a conversation. See also using ordinary earbuds as translation earbuds, the Google Translate comparison and the FAQ.