| Price | Free |
| Version | VARY |
| Category | Productivity |
| Developer | Microsoft Corporation |
| Source | iOS, Android |
| Rating | (4.7) |
Microsoft Translator is a real-time translator that will be of great help when you travel abroad. With support for more than 50 languages, it translates both what you say and what you write, making communication problems in unfamiliar languages minimal.
Microsoft Translator is Microsoft’s attempt to unseat Google Translate, the king of Internet translations. To do so, it has created an app compatible with most Android and iOS smartphones as well as smartwatches and Apple Watch. With it, you can translate any sentence from your language into about fifty other languages. Whether you choose to write a sentence or dictate it, Microsoft Translator will translate it on screen in real time, adapting to the new words you write or say. Once you finish, you can read the complete sentence on the screen and, with a touch, ask it to read it in the language in which you have asked for the translation. Microsoft Translator allows you to “pin” phrases that you need to use often. To do this, tap on the pin and the app will save the phrase. This is ideal when you travel and want to always have certain typical expressions at hand. In addition, Microsoft Translator keeps a history of everything you have asked it to translate. This allows you to retrieve phrases and “pin” them whenever you want.
Microsoft Translator is very competent when it comes to translating written sentences. It will rarely give you problems, especially if you use simple language, the language we usually use when we travel abroad and want to ask for things or have questions answered. In speech recognition it does not give big problems, but it is less accurate. For example, even if you make the correct intonation, the app does not always detect if you make pauses (a comma) or if you ask a question (exclamation marks). This will be more or less of a problem depending on the target language. The truth is that it would be necessary to test more languages to know if it is just a one-off thing or if it happens more in some languages than in others… And I have the feeling that it is the latter. For example, I, who am a native speaker of Spanish and Catalan and speak English, noticed that I didn’t have too many problems for the app to detect my Spanish and my English, despite having a Spanish accent. On the other hand, the detection in Catalan was less accurate. I understand that this has to do with the speech recognition technology, which will be less perfected in more minority languages, for logical reasons. It could also include the option to automatically detect the language. Hopefully this feature will be added later. Despite these flaws, Microsoft Translator is so easy to use that you won’t mind having to repeat a sentence sometimes. In addition, the full integration with smartwatches and Apple Watches is very good; data is shared from your watch to your smartphone or vice versa, which will save you a lot of time on your travels.
Microsoft Translator has room for improvement, but right now it is a very acceptable option for translating sentences quickly. Google Translate may be a step ahead in terms of technology, but it does not have support for smartwatches, which is becoming a necessity nowadays.
