Translate Japanese with the phone doing the reading.
Most people assume a script like this needs a server. It does not: your iPhone reads Japanese from a photograph on its own, which is why the camera keeps working on the shinkansen, in a basement restaurant, and anywhere else with no signal to speak of.
Typing works with no signal
Download the Japanese pack once, over hotel wifi, and typed translation runs on the phone from then on — as it does in all 58 languages.
The camera reads it on the phone
Your iPhone reads Japanese from a photograph itself. Nothing is sent anywhere, and it works with the phone in flight mode.
Speech depends on your iPhone
Spoken translation uses Apple's own speech packs, which cover about half of these languages and differ from phone to phone — so the app tells you if it cannot hear Japanese rather than failing while someone waits. How speech works.
Two real ones, printed and photographed
Both went through the app on an iPhone, from pages we had printed, with no connection needed for either. The Japanese is known rather than guessed; what came back is below it, unedited.
Printed on it
- 本日のメニュー
- 野菜スープとパン
- 鶏肉のグリルとじゃがいも
- 本日の新鮮な魚
- チョコレートケーキ
- コーヒーと紅茶付き
What the app gave back
- Today's menu
- Vegetable soup and bread
- Grilled chicken and potatoes
- Today's fresh fish
- Chocolate cake
- With coffee and tea
Read and translated on an iPhone, 1 September 2026, from a page we had printed — so the original is known rather than guessed. Nothing here is tidied up.
Six lines, six right — including "本日の新鮮な魚" as "today's fresh fish", which is the line the Spanish menu fumbled. On a set menu in a place with no English this is the whole job done.
Printed on it
- 危険
- 電線に触れないでください
- 子供を近づけないでください
- 緊急時は責任者にご連絡ください
What the app gave back
- Danger
- Please do not touch the wire
- Please do not get close to the child
- Please contact the responsible person in case of emergency
Read and translated on an iPhone, 1 September 2026, from a page we had printed — so the original is known rather than guessed. Nothing here is tidied up.
Then this. "子供を近づけないでください" is keep children away. The app said "Please do not get close to the child". The words are all there and the instruction has been handed to the wrong person — which is what machine translation does to an imperative when the subject is left out, as Japanese leaves it out.
Danger, the wires and calling the person in charge all came through. The one line that inverted is the one telling you what to do about a child, and you would want to know that before you relied on it. How the camera reads.
Questions
Does Japanese camera translation work offline on iPhone?
Yes. Japanese is one of the languages the phone can read from a photograph itself, so scanning works with no connection and no image is sent anywhere. Typed translation works offline too, once the Japanese pack is downloaded.
Does it read kanji, hiragana and katakana?
It reads the page as printed. The examples on this page mix all three and the recognition handled them; where the output goes wrong it is the translation rather than the reading.
Is it good enough for a Japanese menu?
For a menu, yes — there is an unedited example on this page that came back clean. For an instruction that has to be obeyed precisely, be careful: there is a second example on this page where the app turned "keep children away" into something else entirely.
Can I speak Japanese into it?
That depends on your iPhone rather than on the app: spoken translation uses Apple’s own speech packs, and which languages a phone can hear differs from phone to phone. The app tells you when it cannot hear the language you have picked.
Take it with you
The first 15 translations are free, with ads and no card. Download the Japanese pack before you go and the phone can do the rest on its own.
Get SofiLingo on the App StoreAll 58 languages · translating with the camera · translating with no internet · a translator for going abroad