Let your iPhone hear another language.
SofiLingo listens with your iPhone's own speech recognition, the one behind dictation. If it says "This device cannot listen in" a language, turn on Dictation and add that language in your iPhone's keyboard settings.
Turn on Dictation
- Open Settings → General → Keyboard.
- Turn on Enable Dictation.
If Dictation is off, SofiLingo says so and offers typing instead.
Add the language
- In Settings → General → Keyboard, tap Keyboards, then Add New Keyboard.
- Choose the language you want your iPhone to hear.
- Back in Keyboard settings, check it is listed under Dictation Languages. Where iOS offers it, the speech pack downloads so it can listen with no connection.
Which way round
In Speak to translate it is your language that has to be heard; in Live translate it is theirs, because the phone listens to the person you are talking to. Live translate checks it can hear that language before it starts.
Your iPhone can hear roughly half of the 58 languages, and which half depends on the speech packs iOS offers on your phone. For the others, SofiLingo offers to let you type instead, which works in every language.
Questions
Why can't SofiLingo hear my language?
It uses your iPhone's speech recognition, which covers roughly half the languages. Turn on Dictation and add the language in Settings → General → Keyboard; if iOS has no speech pack for it, type instead.
Does voice translation work offline?
Where your iPhone has that language's offline speech pack, yes. Without one, iOS sends the audio to Apple to transcribe, as dictation does.
Speak, or type
Speech where your iPhone can hear the language, typing everywhere else: both are on the same screen.
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Voice translator for iPhone · Live translator · All how-to articles