Step up translation apps – free to download, accessible on just about every phone with a camera and incredibly easy to use. I’ve relied on them for years while on holiday, but some of what they're capable of now almost sounds like science fiction.
Take a photo of a menu, timetable or whatever else you need to understand in the app, and it will instantaneously translate the words into English.
And if you need to ask someone a question or for help, it can translate a two-way spoken conversation in different languages via your microphone, even using your phone’s speaker to say the translated response out loud.
But just how good are translation apps? We asked fluent speakers of Hindi, Italian and Polish to try four of the most popular (and free) apps – Google Translate, Apple Translate, Microsoft Translator and DeepL – to find out.
This article first appeared in full in the January edition ofHow we tested for the best translation apps
We first got the translation apps to try out a spoken conversation, where an English speaker asks for directions to a bus stop and information on where and how to buy a ticket. There were a few hiccups.
In Hindi, via Google, we were initially told to go to ‘bus stop bra’ when our fluent speaker had said ‘bus stop B’.
And when we asked if we could buy tickets from the driver onboard, the response: ‘Yes, you can buy them from the driver but only with the exact change, but it is better to use the machines at the bus stop,’ was translated by Microsoft Translator as: ‘You can buy the bus from the man but you won’t get a holiday.’
But that was the only nonsense translation. Some translations were almost faultless and, when they weren’t, in most cases we got the gist of where to catch the bus, how to buy tickets and that the last departure was soon.
We also asked our speakers to check the accuracy of menus in their language translated by the apps into English. Italian proved most successful, with even complex dishes like ‘raviolini di cervo al burro affumicato’ capably translated into ‘deer ravioli with smoked butter’.
Of the four apps we tried out, only Google Translate currently offers Devanagari (the written script used by speakers of Hindi), but did a broadly good job on the menu from a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Delhi. Crucially, it successfully translated dishes rather than ingredients, so ‘dal makhani’, rather than the literal translation of ‘lentil butter’.
Polish – one of Europe’s more difficult languages – had more mistakes. We were threatened with a side of blurred boomers instead of fried beetroot by Google Translate. Meanwhile, Microsoft Translator basically gave up – only translating partial sentences on a menu that was, admittedly, filled with colloquialisms.
Google Translate review
Available on Android and iOSYou could argue Google Translate is the best translation app simply because of how many languages it supports: 243. These run from Manx to Malay, and many can be downloaded to use offline.
Our Polish and Italian speakers both said the app translated their menus most accurately (and it was the only app that could translate Devanagari script).
It was sometimes a bit fiddly to focus our camera in the right way for the app to make translations appear, but only it and Apple Translate successfully translated the allergens on our Italian menu.
In spoken conversations, Google Translate made some minor mistakes about the frequency of buses and struggled to translate ‘exact change’, but in most instances a traveller would have understood.
The conversation feature that should auto-detect spoken languages was unreliable, meaning we often had to pause between responses and switch languages manually.
Verdict: Broadly the best choice. It speaks your language, gets the gist of conversations across and is brilliant at translating written text.
DeepL review
Available on Android and iOSIt claims to be the ‘world’s most accurate translator’, but how accurate really is DeepL? Very accurate, it turns out. Our foreign-language speakers found substance to the claim.
It wasn’t just more accurate than other apps in spoken language translation, but our Polish and Italian speakers both commented on how it translated colloquial language more naturally, making it easier to understand.
It’s a shame there's no conversation mode and only 33 (mostly European) languages. It was hit and miss with our menus. It translated Di Affumico (part of the restaurant’s name) as ‘of smoking’, which may lead some unwitting diners to lighting up inside.
And because the menu was more than 1,500 characters long, we had to sign up to DeepL via email, although this was still free. It can’t be used offline and, while translations won’t run up a big mobile bill, it means you’re reliant on having an internet connection.
Verdict: If your next holiday is somewhere unusual where English isn’t widely spoken, then DeepL will be more useful than Google.
Apple Translate review
Available on iOSOur language speakers found the translations by Apple the least accurate in every language it offered – and, amounting to 19, it doesn’t offer many. That meant we couldn’t try it out in Hindi or Devanagari at all, and it doesn’t allow for Polish to English text translations via the camera.
What it did translate didn’t always make sense. In our bus conversation, it made mistakes in most sentences, meaning we had to restate and reword questions. While the gist was usually communicated, it often remained confusing so you might not know what to do.
Its conversation feature was useful, more often than not auto-detecting languages used, so you didn’t have to manually switch between them. It translated our Italian menu adequately too; you would probably guess that a ‘frayed pork shoulder’ was shredded, although it did randomly translate one dish into Spanish.
Verdict: Enough errors to make communicating confusing. Apple users should download Google Translate or DeepL instead.
Microsoft Translator review
Available on Android and iOSWith 138 languages included (some of which can be downloaded) and a conversation feature that we found auto-detected languages well, Microsoft Translator is a good app.
Apart from some critical mistakes in Hindi over the frequency of buses, it was successful at translating speech – second only to DeepL – and you could understand pretty much all the instructions. Text was slightly less successful.
No amount of zooming with our camera could convince it to properly translate our Polish menu, which it claimed included delicacies such as ‘zero of the old man’ (ribs) and ‘half a duck in the sea’ (half a Berber duck marinated in sea salt).
It struggled to translate ribs in Italian too, and allergies, but was otherwise pretty accurate.
Verdict: It did a decent job for the most part but there’s no real reason to choose it over Google, which was better and has far more languages.Verdict: The best, most accurate translation app for 2025
Our tests showed that not all translation apps are built equally. Google Translate and DeepL were the most accurate of the four according to our native speakers.
Which one you pick depends on where you’re travelling to: Google Translate offers 243 languages, whereas DeepL offers 33, but shines when it comes to colloquial language. You should also consider whether wi-fi will be widely available at your location – if not, DeepL might not be a fit, as it isn’t available offline.
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