Microsoft Translator Reviews

by Chowowz

Not sure why they don’t fix this. It’s been over a year and I’ve reported this bug several times. Repro: take screenshot > tap on preview image (iPhone X) > share > Microsoft translator > hangs trying to translate.

Since it hangs, there’s an option to tap to open MicrosoftTranslator , but if you do, it takes you to the camera mode! You still have to tap on images > choose album > look for image > select > translate.

This is the worst UX for translating an image. Why not just open to translate? Why not swipe sideways to toggle through photo album? Why the hang when taping the share to ms translator? Why? Why? Why???? Are there any product designers actually working in this team? This is unacceptable. Great technology, but lousy execution and UX. No dedication or love from the product builders.

by NaokaTarema

The whole reason I tried MicrosoftTranslator was to have the “share to translate” function that Google translate didn’t have, but it doesn’t work at all. It always says that I’m not connected to the internet, and the translation options aren’t even visible when you tap on the language spots (it’s just a blank screen that comes up, and if you select done, it goes to auto-detect and Spanish. I only have Japanese downloaded for offline use, and Spanish is still the only blind selection that comes up even on airplane mode).
Additionally, there needs to be a way of checking the readings for the kanji for trying to learn the language, on the image itself. When I bring an image into MicrosoftTranslator itself to actually make the translation work, there’s no way to have the overlay show Romaji instead of the nonsense translation it puts over the text.

by Bahamutlives22

MicrosoftTranslator is an abomination and an afront to modern language. I needed MicrosoftTranslator to translate some Russian and Ukrainian language books I'm selling online. I get it. Cyrillic alphabet is difficult to translate and hence why I downloaded MicrosoftTranslator, thinking it would help me facilitate that translation. Turns out I was just deluding myself. It flat out couldn't translate the Russian and Ukrainian text. So I tried to translate a German book. MicrosoftTranslator thought I was trying to translate French to English. French and German? Two very different languages. Okay, then I tried something very. Spanish. It can do Spanish right? Nope. MicrosoftTranslator thought I was trying to translate Italian to English. Seriously? At this point, I think Microsoft is playing a prank on me by releasing this laughably terrible app. I'll stick to Google Translate. It got the jobs I need done and with zero frustration.

by 1,2,3,Translate

The picture translations from Korean to English weren’t working. I tried to translate parts of: a website, general web pages, and a book from Korean to English. However they just wouldn’t translate, most of the text was incomprehensible. Some parts were even showing strange things like 0’s in place of translations. The text to speech however worked great. It provided me with sources whenever I would copy and past the text onto the internet. I’m not really sure why it wouldn’t work on the picture translation function though. This was especially strange since the Spanish to English option worked just fine with this function. Please fix the picture translations from Korean to English. If it weren’t for this I would have rated MicrosoftTranslator much higher.

by Bep6744

Hi there. I am Deaf and uses this for my chats with colleagues at work. My co-worker have MicrosoftTranslator installed and I have it installed on my iPad. Two problems that you need to note: 1) Fix the rotation issue so I can read it easily on the iPad. It wouldn’t rotate AT ALL. 2) My co-worker turned on “auto-play messages” so her iPhone will read out loud when I send a message. She also have the “Presentator mode” turned on as well — so she don’t have to press and hold the microphone button. It sure did read out loud pretty good, but the problem is that her app’s microphone froze for maybe 1 to 2 minutes unless I trigger an action like open keyboard and then close keyboard and then click on the Microphone again. It became a bit annoying and would be perfect if these issues are fixed! Thank you!

by I'm_a_Christian

Whenever I translate to and from Hebrew (true example), the punctuation gets completely messed up. Oftentimes I’ll hit the double arrows button to translate the results back to English to check. Whenever this happens (and this issue has improved some over time with updates), if there was a period at the end, one magically appears at the beginning as well, and so on with question marks, exclamation points, etc. (though not with commas). Also, several words in both Hebrew and other languages aren’t recognized and make radical transformations, including both common and proper nouns. In one incident, I repeatedly tried to translate a sentence containing “Galilee” (a region in northern Israel), and when I checked, “Galilee” had become “the cylinder!” I tried over and over with the same results. These were not the only times there was a glitch in the system, leading me to distrust Microsoft Translator with languages other than the Romance Languages (Spanish, French, etc.), with which I encountered much less error.

by *****T*****

As the title suggests, sometimes the translation feature on the image via the shortcut key siri will fail to connect to the internet. Although tried again on 4G and WiFi but it did not work (but quick translation still works).
When encountering this situation, there is no other way but to delete the application and reinstall, now quickly translating on the image will work again. however, some time later it will fail again, for unknown reasons

by P***ishead123456

I got MicrosoftTranslator for Spanish and this is just amazing. It is amazing to use for translating and finding words. It is super convenient! 👍It can even preform amazing tasks such as filling coffee for me in the morning and feeding my dog. I don’t even have to go to my job anymore, MicrosoftTranslator does it for me! I don’t even have to visit my family anymore because MicrosoftTranslator can even make me invisible to the outside world. MicrosoftTranslator is great, as far as my family knows I’m dead. I recommend MicrosoftTranslator for sure but there is one thing holding me back from 5 stars. When switching languages the the one translating doesn’t switch automatically and you have to do it manually.

by Speedyreader1

I love this translator. It’s super helpful on school assignments if I don’t understand a word or phrase and as someone who’s learning multiple languages at once it’s really helpful. I can use the split microphone tool to practice with my family because I can ask a question in a language I’m learning and it will translate to English for them. Then I can respond in my target language. The camera tool is helpful for restaurants and I love the phrase book. My only complaint is that in some more complex languages such as Korean it will only translate from English to Korean in honorifics. However from Korean to English it works just fine without honorifics. Otherwise I love MicrosoftTranslator and use it all the time!

by RobKipa

I use MicrosoftTranslator primarily as an ‘extension’ to Safari. While iOS 14+ has native translation for certain languages, the list is short, and I’d often like to translate Polish web pages. Without MicrosoftTranslator, Safari can’t translate Polish, and to use Google would be cumbersome as only the desktop version translates entire pages.

With Microsoft Translator, I can share the page in Safari, and Translator is one of the available actions. All the translation is done on-page within Safari and is quite accurate.

The U.I. for MicrosoftTranslator itself could use some improvement, but I rarely use it. Great work by MS.

by Catndud

I like to refer to words & phrases in my communications to give them character. I initially got this to help me remember my French which I took throughout my high school years (many, many years ago!) The saying “use it or lose it” is true. Not having anyone to converse in what was once my second language, I struggle to remember .... well, most of it (40+ years later). MicrosoftTranslator is very user friendly. I’ve been using it for about 8 months now & so far, so good! 👍

by Sfordin

Easy to use, nice features and interface touches, lots of fun! Full disclosure: I’ve only been playing with MicrosoftTranslator for a little while, I’ve not yet tested it “in the wild,” and I’ve thus far only used English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

That said, the translations I’ve seen so far seem reasonably accurate, and the ways that MicrosoftTranslator presents spoken, printed, and phonetic results are very useful. To be sure, language in general can be subjective and analog, especially around edge cases, so YMMV, but MicrosoftTranslator seems pretty darned nice. Well done!

by Stddef

This is definitely the best language translator app in the store, and it’s free! The second best is iTranslate, but it’s expensive and though it has good features, it’s more wrong than this one, despite iTranslate using the same starting point. Either way, get MicrosoftTranslator and try it, the best feature bout it is the image scan that translates your documents or signs or whatever. It does a really good job and that’s where you can see the big company of Microsoft’s involvement because their AI is so good. :)

by Zareview

I moved to Switzerland and I used to use google translator for everything since it had image translation feature that came very handy when in restaurants, or in streets. However, after using Microsoft translator, I never went back to Google app. First off, MS translator does much better job of pronouncing the words or a phrase by slowing it down for each retry. Secondly, when translating through image capture, it puts the words in the original image. Google and other translators bunch them all up in an unformatted paragraph which make it unclear where a sentence ends or starts. Very nice work by MS. The only improvement I would recommend is to have the landscape feature work. Currently, everything must be in portrait.

by Fkrkjivfocifktj

This translator is better then any of the other apps. It is free with NO ADS. And it is fast and smooth. I needed a good translation app, I had tried many or the paid or subscription based apps and they are garbage compared to this. I’m very happy with MicrosoftTranslator and Microsoft is definitely leading the way in real time translation. I’m so glad I gave MicrosoftTranslator a try. I wasn’t expecting it to be the best of them all. It’s so far ahead all of the others it makes me wonder how they are even on MicrosoftTranslator Store.

by Devoted Mommy

We just met our new friends today, an Afghan refugee family. They speak Dari and we were using another translation app with Persian because that’s as close to Dari as we thought we were going to get. After a few frustrating moments where that just wasn’t cutting it, I came home tonight thinking there HAD to be a way to translate English to true Dari. A quick google search led me here and we are already communicating in a whole new, much more clear way. THANK YOU!!! The gift of communication is no small thing!!

by SysOp404

...issue with phrases in History, that had became high-pitched and super-fast, for several days. (The “chipmunk-like” speech WAS humorous, but unintelligible.)

Among the apps I’ve compared, this remains the best English/Spanish translator for my needs. There is only one improvement still on my wishlist. The automatic speed step-down option (in Settings) can be replaced with a different concept:

Let us decide how slow we want to hear the playback. Wherever a playback speaker icon currently appears, give us four speaker icons - 1 for normal speed, 1 for a little slower, 1 for a lot slower and 1 for slowest.

Truthfully, the automatic feature is annoying, so many of us simply leave it turned off, until we absolutely have to use it. Give us controls for the playback speed and the improvement is sure to increase the popularity of MicrosoftTranslator, dramatically.

by Bunnyrabbithare

I should have known earlier that this translator had Cantonese because searching for a working Cantonese translator online with pronunciations is certainly very difficult to do, mainly because Cantonese is not spoken very much. Being a millennial, learning Cantonese is difficult, mainly because where I live in the US, no one teaches it and Mandarin is usually preferred and Google translate had Cantonese input, which for me is somewhat surprising, but there wasn't a reverse function so I couldn't type in English to them hear the spoken words. Now that I have this, I can reduce the language barrier between my relatives who only speak Cantonese.

by Levi Abbott

I use MicrosoftTranslator almost daily, while I have been around Spanish speakers for my entire adult life and even taken several Spanish classes, I often just don’t understand or have difficulty expressing myself. Having a translator app on my phone really removes hurdles in daily life. I have tried the comparable app from Google and for English/Spanish Microsoft has done a vastly superior job handling linguistic idioms. To often other translators provide a literal word for word translation that is difficult and sometimes doesn’t convey the original intent. The chat function is great to collaborate with multiple people too.

by Wbarras

Just downloaded MicrosoftTranslator. I have been playing with it all afternoon. We are planing a trip to Japan in the fall. I have been thinking of purchasing one of those hand held voice translators. I have been reading reviews and looking at all manor of voice translators for months. Hand held and earbud translators range anywhere from $100 to as much as $400+. Well..... MicrosoftTranslator seems to have everything I have been looking for in a voice translator. All in an app on my iPhone 8. An additional plus is I wont have to carry my phone AND a separate voice translators. And the basic is FREE! I gave 4 stars because I haven’t had a chance you use this application while traveling. I have a feeling it will rate the five stars plus!

by Rhonda489

This was my go to translator app because I was able to take a picture and have it translated for me. But recently it stopped working. I always translated Spanish to English because my husband’s family all speak Spanish because they’re from Ecuador. It was a great way for me to translate messages. But now when I click on Spanish to English and take a picture it goes back to English translating English which obviously does me no good. I’ve uninstalled it and reinstalled it I even tried to put Spanish to Spanish just to see what it would do and it goes back to English. So they get one star for me until they fix the camera because that’s the only way I can use the translator

by Sxr71

The workflow is typical Microsoft trash. Have these clowns used google product?

The “close” button is right next to where the hidden “x” is to clear out the text. So many accidental presses.

No auto language detect? Are these jokers serious? Sometimes I paste English sometimes I paste Spanish. Any monkey brained fool would know that is how people will use MicrosoftTranslator . It common sense among monkeys but not at Microsoft

The area to type the text you want translated is right at the top. Have you clowns looked at the phone and how people hold it? Should I wear extensions on my fingers? Put the text field closer to the bottom.

And seriously to copy I have to wait for the menu to pop up? Notice how google has one tap copy to clipboard? That’s because that is how people generally use translations. If you want to offer all those other options find another button for it. I need just a copy button only. I’m not going to wait for the menu to pop up every time.

Usability was designed by beings less than monkeys in intelligence. Stupid clowns.

by DJ B.

For a minute the safari plugin was working fine. Then, they updated a month or so ago and the plugin is dead weight now. Also, the keyboard collapses when switching between languages in the type menu. This is really annoying. Editing type is practically impossible in the middle of the body. The first keystroke will place at the cursor but every consecutive keystroke is moved to the end of the text body. All in all, most of the translations are fairly accurate. As well, this is the only translator I could find to do Cantonese really well.

by RadioStormNY

This I received more than one voicemai in Chinese. After receiving one day I decided to find a voice translator app. So I tried a few and this appears to most accurate compared to the others.
I say that because the message from today talked about the Chinese consulate and two others discussed international packages. I heard about the consulate scam about a year ago and only learned of international package calls today. So I will definitely be keeping MicrosoftTranslator.

by HealthyAttitude

Every time it completes the translation and I hit the play button MicrosoftTranslator on crashes. The iPhone and iPad work fine but the watch is horrible. Along with the translation voice crashing MicrosoftTranslator it doesn’t change to a different language easily, it takes multiple attempts to get it to change. Make the watch version the same quality as the iPhone version and it’s a 5 Star app.