Google Translate is very good. This is the alternative for offline privacy.

Offline: Google Translate vs SofiLingo

Measured on 24 September 2026, with no connection on either side, over 200 photographed pages in 40 languages. Word overlap is scored against a human translation of the same page.

The words that matter survive more often too — on a station sign, exit came through on 33 pages against 20, and danger on 36 against 23.

Live translations: let them talk, and read what they say

Live translate listens to the person in front of you — a doctor, a landlord, a taxi driver — and writes each sentence in your language as it is said. Nobody has to stop, take the phone and repeat themselves into it. It works a sentence at a time, so each one lands a couple of seconds after it was said: fast enough to follow someone, not fast enough to interrupt them.

Nothing from a live session is kept. Close the screen and the transcript is gone — not on your phone, not anywhere else. A record of what a doctor or an official said is not the same kind of thing as a photographed menu, and the safest place for it is nowhere.

Google Translate has a Conversation mode and a Transcribe mode that do much the same job, and Transcribe will follow a long stretch of speech. What differs is the checking. SofiLingo uses your iPhone's own offline dictation first and tells you when it cannot, rather than quietly spending roaming data — and it asks before the session starts whether your phone can hear the language being spoken, which is the other person's language rather than yours. How live translate works.

No account. Not now, not later.

No sign-up, no email address, no password. We never ask who you are. Your translations and your scan history live on your phone — there is nothing on our side to read, because we never collected it.

Google Translate requires a sign in to keep your history, sync it between your devices and tie it to the rest of your Google account. The difference is that with SofiLingo there is no signed-in version to reach for, because there is nothing to sign in to. What does and does not leave your phone.

A scan is something you keep

Every scan is saved. Look the menu up again over dinner, or translate the same one into a different language later, as many times as you like and at no extra cost. Most camera translators show you the words and then the moment is gone.

No signal? It waits.

Point and shoot with one bar. SofiLingo keeps the photo and finishes the translation the moment you are back online, so you do not lose the menu because the café had no wifi. Typing works offline in every one of the 58 languages — download the ones you need over hotel wifi before you go.

Google Translate has offline packs too, and for many languages its camera works without a connection as well. The difference is what happens when the phone genuinely cannot read the script on its own — Greek, Thai, Arabic and the rest. There, nothing can translate it on the spot. SofiLingo keeps the photograph and finishes the job later instead of asking you to come back and take it again. What works with no internet.

What this page says about Google Translate — offline packs, the camera without a connection, signing in to keep and sync history — was checked against Google Translate Help on 1 October 2026.

It tells you what it cannot do, before you try

Some languages use scripts your phone cannot read on its own, and an iPhone can only listen in about half the languages we translate. SofiLingo says so up front — before you press record, not after — and offers you a language it can hear instead. We would rather tell you now than have you find out with a waiter standing over you.

If a translation comes out wrong you can send us that one scan to help fix it. Nothing is sent unless you ask, and we show you exactly what goes first. Which language does what.