Translate 4+

I am travelling now, and I find this app endlessly frustrating.

I have downloaded the Spanish and English dictionaries to translate offline, but I find that without being online it will simply hang and never actually translate. Even when online, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it doesn’t like my VPN, then when I turn my VPN off sometimes it just doesn’t want to work anyway.

Just today, it randomly told me “translation not available” when I needed it most. As I said, I have downloaded the only two languages I need - why am I being told this!? I’m on an iPhone 14 Pro, so I’m definitely not on a slower or older model.

I loved the idea of a native app for translation, but I’m switching to Google it seems. When it works the content is good, but if I can’t rely on it what’s the point?

I’ve had this app on my phone for years. Honestly I don’t know why because it is utter trash. Rarely does it accurately understand what I’ve said on the first go. Most times I have to try repeatedly before giving up and manually typing. Actually I could swear I’ve written a review for this before, but I guess not.

Sometimes it correctly identifies what I say, only to suddenly switch the detected word or sentence to something else, which flabbergasts me. Just now I had to laugh. I said the word “ceremony” and saw it detected “ceremony”. Then the app decided to change it to “Sera Moni” at the last moment, for some reason. Next I asked the app to translate “divisiveness” for me, and it thought I wanted a translation for “divisive ness”. Seriously? Sometimes it simply will not understand a word no matter how slowly and carefully I pronounce it. Another annoying thing is if I have spoken a sentence, and it misdetected a single word, there is no way to edit the sentence. I have to say it again, only for it to get a different word wrong.

Note for users:
if you download a language or intend to use ‘On Device Mode’ make sure you see the the download indicator(circle) finish before returning to the translator app.

Note for Apple:
Bug: When downloading a language, a chosen language(s) does not download unless ‘Manage Languages’ window is left open until the language is completely downloaded. To explain further, if the language(s) being downloaded for ‘Available Offline’ is selected then user goes back to the Translate app, the language simply will not download. This bug is consistent with iPhone and iPad. It is not a network issue as it has been tested on a network with 1000Mb internet.

Feature request 1:
Capability to change translator voice (male/female).

Feature request 2:
Capability to have live conversation with three or four different language speakers at the same time.

Feature request 3:
Capability to share AirPods wherein live translations of designated conversation partner is shared while iPhone is in pocket. For example you are conversing while moving around a city, transport or doing any other activity.

Feature request 4: Own voice can be used as the translation voice.