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Q: What's the best free Chinese-English translation app for iphone?
11 years 36 weeks ago in Web & Technology - China
"English Chinese Translator with Voice for iPhone"
Yeah, that's the name of the app. I speak very badly Chinese, but when using simple phrasing, I believe it does the job as Chinese people can understand... even though it looks really akward. I'm still not used to that!
I use KT-Dict C-E and find it okay. The best part is that you don't need to be hooked up to 3G or wireless to use it. It's vocab database is slightly limited though.
Its more of a dictionary than a translation app, but I would also recommend Pleco. Its free, you can download extra dictionaries and it has a feature for Iphone 4 (still in beta) that lets you use the camera on it to look up characters in real life.
Ditch the iPhone and get a Driod. Most app's are free and in my opinion better. Hanping is what I use. Its brilliant, I use it nearly everyday. And with the monthly or quarterly updates it's just getting better and better.
I met a guy in Hong Kong who talked into his phone in English and it repeated the same phrase in Chinese within two seconds. He said he has 16 languages and 8 industry dictionaries downloaded for $99 (steep but worth it). But now I can't find the scrap of paper I wrote the name of the app on. Does anyone know what program this is?
Absolutely Pleco. It's free but if you want to you can later add (buy) more dictionaries.
Pleco sucks butt. There's too many mistakes and mistranslations. Pleco is fine if you want simple words translated, but it fails at the more advanced or colloquial chinese. I personally like Nciku Online (NOT nciku which is slow and also sucks). Google Translate is also pretty good, but you need some basic level chinese to make sure it's translating correcting.
I'm not sure about translating apps, but for all levels of vocab and even most phrases there's a pretty good dictionary that I also use alongside Pleco and it's called Jinshan (金山词霸). Sometimes it doesn't include Pinyin which is at times inconvenient but it almost always has a very good, Mainland translation of the words. I've heard from many Chinese friends that Pleco sometimes has old versions of words or the HK or Taiwan way of saying them...
Depends on if you want to learn some Chinese as well or just be lazy.
If you know some Chinese phrases and are looking for vocab filling (i.e. you want to buy a torch and don't know the word, but know how to ask for it) then I'd get K-Dict, it's free and works great with multiple words for explanation.
If you're lazy then get Google Translate, it works online only but can handle long sentences such as messages from your bank or the weather etc.
I personally use both, KDict for when I want to look up a single word and GT for when I'm translating a message and can't be bothered to work out what it says.
Some have recommended Pleco, this is great but it can get confusing sometimes if you're looking through all the definitions of a word. I'd get it and pay for the OCR which can use your phones camera to read a character/s on a newspaper, box, sign, wall, anywhere which is really useful in a restaurant that doesn't have pictures.
I'd stick away from most translators that claim to be free with advertising as they are just a front, they use Google's servers and push ads in your face, just get Google's native translator.
Pleco is reasonable good one for laowais to learning Chinese.
Pleco is reasonable good one for laowais to learning Chinese.
Dian Hua is what I use, it's great. Really good for you to learn as well as translate on the spot, it has its own learning tools where you create your own test scores as well as giving you stroke by stroke of how to draw each character.
Downside is you can't translate long sentences, it's more for words and phrases.
Waygo can translate almost every written text with the cam, it's actually quite good for beginners like me.
What about a translator that is good to use offline when there is not internet connections available. Any suggestions for an Android phone? I would like a voice to translation mode please.
dgz:
Baidu Translate has a function that allows you to download an offline pack. Works ok.
What is the name of the app that takes your English voice input and spits it back out in Chinese voice like in less than three seconds? I saw some UNICEF people using it at a meeting. Stupid me forgot to ask. Does anyone know? It was the coolest thing I have seen in China so far.
1. Baidu translate app - fairly accurate.
2. You can use translate.google.cn/m/translate in your phone browser.
This works well without VPN also
