sunswhtdog

I would like to add an easy multi-language App on my I phone for Polish, Czech, and Austria (German).
Has anyone had great success? There are a few to weed through and I have limited time (work,work,work).

I like a translation app that let's me type and an app that does voice recognition?

Please help, we leave in a week!,

And, we are excited!!!

Thanks
Sun

pariswat

I use the app from google.

HappyTrvlr

I have used Google Translate successfully in Germany, Poland, Italy, Greece, Turkey. You set the two languages, type in what you want to translate. There is also a feature that will speak the translated words to the other person in their language.

sunswhtdog

Thank you!

unclegus

the google app is pretty good, you can even photograph menus and it will do a translation from the picture

rellie2

World Lens is great. We used it on our recent trip to Italy & France.

ctoner

"Translator" is a good one! I've used it often.

jackgreens

Google Translator is the best one. It's the best translation tool for literal translation.

But, it only helps in translating words or short phrases, and for a meaningful translation, you will be needing a human translator to do so.

In fact, a certified translator to translate important documents like Birth Certificate, Marriage Certificate, Legal Documents etc.

jubilada

I like reverso context

greg

You need some idea of how these translators work.

They use both grammatical rules as well as accessing a huge amount of reliable human translated document to see how human translate these documents in context for google translate. The computer is really bad with the context on its own.

The contextual search is very compute and data intensive. For this reason, you need a data connection to get most out of the translator to access their data center capability.

When you cannot access the context, you get bizarre translations. This can happen:

- With language with less context database. Less used language combinations. The translator relies more on grammatical rules, but devoid of context.
- You don't have data connection. Starting 2016, iOS google translate has an offline capability. But it is no match to being able to access the online data center.

The voice recognition is even more problematic. You have all the limitations of the written translation PLUS voice recognition ambiguities. Only a few of my native colleagues speak English in a way for the voice recognition to work almost perfectly.

Taking a picture of text to be translated also requires a data connection.

VeshaliNarang

You can try Google Translator it's good for the literal translation, but again no app or software can beat the efficiency of a human translator and I think certified translators are the best choice for all types of translation related jobs.

bilboburgler

I tried the Google app this autumn in restaurants in German and French into English. Just plain silly. Also used on fired instructions, motorway intructions etc. Just c&&p.

Given that automatic translation was a millenium goal (2000) and we have now hit 2016 with a fair bit of rubbish in the system I suspect we still have a fair few years to go.

BTW ever tried using verbal typing software. The latest versions can best be described as rubbish

StCirq

I realize this is an old post, but they are all rubbish. And how, exactly, does one expect them to work? You enter a store, say, and expect some staff person to hang around while you type on a device and wait until your request for "white socks, size 9" shows up in the local language? Then you hand the device to a sales person and wait until the response comes in in Polish - "We don't have size 9 in Poland - those are US sizes, but let me show you our sock collection..." Absolute BS waste of time, IMO. Better to flounder around with hand gestures and what you have, one hopes, picked up of the local language ahead of time.

NewbE

Why is it better to spend time floundering around without an app than to spend time floundering around with one? Either way, you will take up more of someone's time than if you were a fluent speaker, but c'est la vie, right?

I saw a man make a purchase in exactly the way you describe, St. Cirq, except that the clerk had her own phone and used it to reply to his queries, and while it was a slow process, it worked.

Finally,
<they are all rubbish>
Are you basing this on your experience with translation apps? Which ones? Which languages?

Or is it your entirely useless opinion?

StCirq

It's my entirely useless opinion, dimwit.

bilboburgler

Just to add to the content, I spent part of last year working with google tran English Italian. Note that I can at least basically understand Italian at a B1 level so I was working to improve the output into something useful. My Italian friend came back one day after i sent him a short paragraph roaring with laughter. "it's S&&t" was how he described it, "like Mr Bean". So I sent him the original and that was even worse.

My SIL works in English/Russian/German as a translator. She tried Google tran last year just as an experiment. her comments are untranslatable

Another 10 years or so ....