Translator Devices and Apps for Work and Play

How many languages do you speak fluently? Most of us will answer that question with one or two. One thing about Road Warriors, they usually travel, both for work and for recreation. While English has evolved into one of the most universal languages, often those travels (particularly for pleasure) bring us to countries where many, if not most, people do not speak English. Depending on where you live and work in the United States, you will likely encounter clients or potential clients with limited English capabilities. For example, in the southwestern United States and California, many residents speak Spanish as their primary, if not their exclusive, language.

But what if you could easily communicate with almost anyone in the world, regardless of their native tongue? What if you could travel to any country and understand the signs, menus, and conversations around you? What if you could conduct business with clients and partners from different cultures and backgrounds without language barriers?

When I started practicing law, we saw that as fiction. To deal with languages you did not speak fluently, you required a human translator. We still use that process in court and for other formal legal proceedings. That may change soon. But for pleasure travel, it has already changed. Conversing and conducting business in languages you do not speak fluently (or at all) has become fact and no longer a fantasy. Modern technology has enabled the development of highly accurate and functional translator devices and apps. In recent years, such devices and apps have grown increasingly more accessible, affordable, and accurate, making them indispensable tools for work and travel.

Whether you need (or want) a pocket-sized gadget that can translate speech and text in real time or a smartphone app that can scan and interpret images and documents, we have a reasonably priced translator solution for almost every situation.

In this article, we will explore some benefits and challenges of using translator devices and apps, as well as some of the best options available.

Old-School (i.e., Human) Translators

I have practiced law in California for more than 50 years. When I started practicing, most of the potential clients I encountered spoke English, some spoke Spanish, and some spoke various Asian languages as their primary tongue. In those days, the Oakland–San Francisco Bay Area, where I practiced, had a substantial Spanish-speaking population and a large population of Asian immigrants who spoke a variety of Asian languages and dialects. When I was in school, in what may have been one of my poorer decisions, I chose to study German in high school and French in college. While I have enjoyed the ability to understand some German and much more French, I never encountered a potential client who used German as their primary language. I encountered some French speakers, but very few. My knowledge of French did prove useful on a personal level as I married an Italian girl, and when we went to Italy to visit her family, I discovered that French and Italian had enough similarities that I could understand a lot of their Italian, even though I could not speak it.

Given the region where I practice law, I wish I had learned Spanish, but I did not, so in my practice, I had to rely on translators (sometimes professional and sometimes not) to communicate with exclusively Spanish speakers. The translator often was a friend or relative of the client, most commonly a bilingual young child born or raised in the United States. We made it work, but I never felt completely comfortable trusting a 12-year-old to accurately translate for his or her parents to their lawyer.

Over the years, the Bay Area population grew more culturally diverse, largely because of the development of Silicon Valley. As that happened, I had potential clients who spoke many other languages, including Italian, Russian, Farsi (Persian), and Greek.

As it turned out, professional translators did not always solve the problem. I had several experiences with professional (court-approved) translators whom my clients swore did not accurately translate from one language to another.

Over the last ten to 15 years, this situation has changed greatly, and we now have technology capable of assisting us in the translation of one language to another.

The Rise of Translation Technology

If you have traveled outside of the United States in the last seven or eight years and done any shopping, you likely noticed that shopkeepers and their workers, many of whom speak little or no English, regularly pulled out their smartphones, opened an app, and encouraged you to speak or type your questions and replies to their questions into the app. They would then reply in the same manner. The app would translate your English into their whatever and their whatever into your English. The process resulted in your finding out whether they had what you desired and, if so, how much they wanted for it. As many countries include bargaining in their commercial chain of activities, it also enabled you to more easily bargain with a merchant over a price, if you wished. Many apps fill that function adequately; in an informal poll I took over my last several trips to countries including Egypt, Turkey, Italy, Russia (before COVID and the Ukraine invasion), and other venues, I learned that most vendors I encountered used Google Translate. As that simply reflects my personal experience and informal poll, I acknowledge that it is anecdotal.

While not the only translator app available by a long shot in the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store, Google Translate has among the best acceptance. Many people use it. They trust its accuracy enough to use it commercially in business transactions and social interactions. I suspect that Google’s primary attraction to most is the fact that it comes at no charge, but I cannot prove that, and it takes nothing away from the fact that so many users employ it and rely on it in their business transactions.

In 1973, when I started to travel internationally, you found different cultures, different cuisines, and different, as well as sometimes unique, goods when you went to a foreign country. That has changed, and now we live in a much smaller world where many goods and much cuisine are available everywhere. I cannot recall the last city I visited (outside of Italy) that did not have a Starbucks. Most of our fast-food chains also have a strong representation. (I wonder, do they refer to McDonald’s as “American food”?) Even in today’s world, however, when I travel, I find some goods, often hand-crafted, in foreign countries that I cannot easily find in the United States, even on the Internet. I also regularly find goods at substantially better prices than I can in the United States. Leather coats and jackets that I have found in Turkey, Portugal, Argentina, and Italy immediately come to mind by way of high-quality goods at substantially lower prices than they sell for in the United States. For example, last year, I went to Istanbul and brought back several very high quality leather jackets that I purchased at 30 percent to 50 percent of what I would have paid in the United States. All the purchases involved negotiation over the price, customary in Istanbul. Some vendors I dealt with spoke English well. Some, not so well. Some, not at all. I arrived in Istanbul unable to speak a single word of Turkish. Using a portable translator (mine) or their phone app (usually Google Translate) enabled the successful completion of each transaction.

In the United States, I try to stay away from brick-and-mortar retail stores and do most of my shopping online; when I travel abroad, however, I still enjoy going to the local shops, seeing what they have to offer, and interacting with the people there to learn more about the country, get some inside information about local restaurants, and learn more about goods I might want to acquire.

I give you this background to whet your appetite for some translation apps for your mobile devices (the least expensive way to go) and/or to induce you to acquire one of the many stand-alone translation devices available to you. By way of further background, as good as these apps and devices have proven themselves to be, the evolution of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and ChatGPT will make them much better as they employ that technology.

I don’t intend this article to serve as a roundup of all or even most translator apps or devices. The universe of such apps and devices makes that an unlikely project for this column. I intend only to introduce you to these apps and devices and to discuss with you a few that I have tried. I do not claim that the apps or devices discussed in this article qualify as the best on the market. I have tried many and like some better than others. I will share with you the ones I like the best.

Let’s Talk about Apps

Each of the following apps requires an Internet connection for full functionality, additional features, and, in most cases, more accurate translations. Each will work to a more limited extent in an offline mode. Each will work with voice, text, and images. I have used all three of these fairly extensively, as I like them better than others I have tried. I have listed them in order of my preference and the frequency with which I have used them.

Google Translate

This app supports more than 100 languages and can translate handwriting. Its conversation mode allows you to have real-time bilingual conversations with another person. The app costs nothing to acquire or use. The quality of translation may vary depending on the language pair and the complexity of the text. This app uses a combination of statistical machine translation (SMT) and neural machine translation (NMT) to provide fast and accurate translations. Google Translate does not yet use GenAI or ChatGPT in its structure, but it uses Transformer, a deep-learning model based on the attention mechanism, and can generate natural language sequences.

Microsoft Translator

This app supports more than 70 languages. It also has a conversation mode that lets you join or host multi-person conversations across devices. The app is free. The accuracy of translation may not be consistent across all languages. Microsoft Translator does not yet use GenAI or ChatGPT in its structure, but it uses LUIS (Language Understanding Intelligent Service), a cloud-based service that can understand natural language and extract relevant information.

iTranslate

This app supports more than 100 languages. Its voice mode allows you to speak and listen to translations in different dialects and accents. The app has a free version, but a premium subscription ($4.99 per month or $39.99 per year) offers more features and languages. Some of the premium features include offline translation, verb conjugations, website translation, and transliteration. This app uses NMT and rule-based machine translation (RBMT) to provide accurate translations. iTranslate does not use GenAI or ChatGPT in its structure, but it uses Dialogflow, a platform that can build conversational agents and natural language interfaces.

GenAI and ChatGPT can significantly affect translator apps, as they enable more natural and fluent translations that can capture the context, tone, and style of the original text. They also allow for more interactive and conversational modes of translation that can facilitate cross-cultural communication. The three apps I have used most consistently have not implemented GenAI or ChatGPT into their structures. They employ other technology. The world of translator apps will undoubtedly change due to GenAI and ChatGPT. Whether and to what extent Google, Microsoft, or iTranslate will modify their code to employ this technology remains to be seen. Meanwhile, all three continue to work well. I have not yet worked extensively with the newer GenAI-based translator apps. I am exploring them and comparing them to the three I have regularly used. Two of the best AI implementations in translator apps for travel, according to preliminary research and the opinions of others, are:

DeepL

This app uses deep learning and neural networks to produce high-quality translations that rival human translators. It supports 26 languages and can translate whole documents and websites. The app is free for up to 5,000 characters per month and offers a subscription plan ($5.99 per month or $59.88 per year) for unlimited characters and features.

SayHi

This app uses speech recognition and synthesis to provide instant voice translation for more than 90 languages and dialects. It has a simple interface: You tap and hold before you speak, then you release to hear the translation. The app is free and works offline for some languages.

You should download at least two of the apps and try them out. I recommend Google and Microsoft, as they have achieved worldwide acceptance, are highly versatile, and are easy to use. You may also want to try one or more of the GenAI-based apps for comparison. I have DeepL and SayHi on my phone now and have started exploring them in anticipation of my next venture abroad.

Stand-Alone Translator Devices

Although mobile apps work well and can do most everything you need while traveling, I have found that I like working with a stand-alone translator device and that sometimes I like it better than an app. I have tried many stand-alone translators and found several that I thought were well-made, highly functional, and easy to use. As this column rapidly approaches its maximum length, I have decided to cut right to the chase and tell you about the one I like the best: the Vasco V4.

The V4 supports 108 languages and dialects, giving it one of the best repertoires available. It works quickly, providing rapid response and high accuracy. It requires an Internet connection to use all its features but works offline with 70 languages. It comes with a global SIM card providing Internet access in almost 200 countries. It works with text, voice, and images; it can translate text through photos. It has noise-cancellation technology built into its system. It is relatively small (easily fits in a pocket) but has a good-sized touch screen. Most of the better stand-alone translators fall into the $250 to $500 range. The Vasco V4 comes in close to the middle of that range at $389. After taking a variety of translator devices with me over the years (I took six on one trip to test them out against each other), I decided that I like this one the best, and it now comes with me on all my trips out of the country. I have also used it at home when speaking to someone with limited or no English.

If you do not want to pay the cost of the V4, some very good, but less expensive, stand-alone translators worth considering include the Vasco M3 ($289), the Timekettle Fluentalk T1 ($299.99), and the Pocketalk Plus ($299).