

There are three main parts to this app: photo, voice, and text translation. In no particular order, these are the apps I tested: 1. These were downloaded from the App Store on an iPhone, though some of these will also be available on Android. I took six translation apps out into the Tokyo wilderness for a spin. For this reason, I didn’t include grammar-focused Japanese-learning apps, ‘phrasebook’ apps, or dictionary apps. The goal was to find useful, intuitive apps that non-Japanese speakers could use to communicate with locals, figure out what’s what, and generally get around.

There are quite literally hundreds of translation apps out there. – image © Florentyna Leow Japanese–English and English–Japanese Translation Apps for iPhones Spoiler: It’s not 100% accurate, but out of all the apps I tested, Photo Translator performed best with handwritten menus.

One of the most intimidating things about traveling somewhere new like Japan used to be language barriers – being unable to communicate your needs and wants to people, or indeed understand anything they were saying to you.įortunately, you won’t need to slip Douglas Adams’ small, yellow, leech-like Babel Fish into your ear to understand what anyone’s saying on your travels. Use clear and commonly used fonts for best results.Six translation apps for Japan travel.Check that the “Translate from” and “Translate to” languages are correct.To get the best translation results for your images: Download the language(s) you’d like your translation in.Īfter the download is complete, camera translations will work for the downloaded language(s) even when you're disconnected from the internet.On your Android phone or tablet, open the Translate app.To use camera translations offline, download the languages that you want to translate. Search: To search translated text on Google, tap Search.Send to Translate Home: To get more information, tap Send to Translate Home.

Listen: To have Translate read your translated text, tap Listen.Copy text: To copy the text, select the text you’d like to copy and tap Copy text.At the bottom, choose an option from the carousel:.Select the part of the text you want to take action on.Once the text in an image is translated, you can do things like copy the text, have it read aloud, or send it to Translate Home for more information.
