Translate a conversation in real time with your phone

Phone on the table, earbuds or a call

Real-time translation comes in three shapes, and it helps to know which one you need before you are standing at a pharmacy counter. The first is the phone between two people: each speaks in turn and the phone shows and reads the translation, sometimes with the screen split so each person reads their own half. The second is listening: you wear earbuds and hear what the other person says in your language, which suits a guide, a landlord explaining the flat or a long conversation. The third is a phone call translated on the fly, useful for calling a restaurant or a garage abroad.

Every system below does at least one of them. What changes is whether it runs on the phone itself or on a server, which decides whether it keeps working in a basement bar, on a ferry or wherever your data plan does not reach. Downloading languages for text and camera translation is a separate topic, covered in offline translation for travel.

Google Translate: live translate

In the Google Translate app, on Android and iPhone, the feature is called live translate. Open the app, connect headphones first if you want to use them, tap live translate at the bottom and choose a mode and your two languages. Conversation mode plays the translations out loud through the phone or headphones while you take turns; Google says the microphone detects when one language stops and the other starts. Listening mode is for headphones or the phone held to your ear, and Text only shows the translation without audio. On Android there is also a face-to-face mode, where each person sees the transcription and translation in their own language on their half of the screen.

The catch is offline use. Google's help page says downloading languages for offline live translation is only available on Pixel 9, 10 and 11, and only for English paired with Italian, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Hindi, Russian, Swedish, Japanese or Indonesian. On any other phone, plan on live translate needing data.

Apple's Translate app: the Conversation tab

On iPhone, open Translate and tap Conversation. You can type or tap the microphone and speak, and the translations appear as chat bubbles from both sides. Behind the options button there are three settings worth turning on before you hand the phone over: Play translations reads every translation aloud, Auto Translate lets the iPhone detect when someone starts and stops speaking so nobody has to tap the microphone, and Detect Language works out which of the two languages is being spoken. Under View, Face to Face turns the screen so each person reads the conversation from their own side.

Apple states that conversations work for downloaded languages when you have no internet connection. Languages are downloaded in Settings, Apps, Translate, Languages, and the On-Device Translation setting on the same screen decides whether translation may use Apple's servers when a language is missing. Download both languages of the conversation, yours and theirs.

AirPods: translation in your ears

Live Translation with AirPods lets you hear someone nearby translated into your language, with the transcript on the iPhone. Apple's AirPods guide lists the requirements: an iPhone 15 Pro or later model with Apple Intelligence turned on, and AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation, AirPods 5, AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Pro 3 or AirPods Max 2 with the latest firmware. Apple labels it a beta.

Set it up at home. In Settings, tap your AirPods' name and, under Translation, download the other person's language and yours; Apple says that once both are downloaded, all processing happens on the iPhone. Then, in the Translate app, tap Live, choose Their Language and Your Language, and start it by pressing and holding both AirPods stems, from the Translate app or from Control Center. You reply aloud and show the transcript or play the translation on the iPhone speaker. Check Apple's feature availability page first: the iPhone guide notes the feature is not offered in every region, and names the EU as an exception.

Samsung's Interpreter and Pixel's call translation

On a Galaxy phone with Galaxy AI, Interpreter opens from the Quick settings panel: swipe down with two fingers, tap Interpreter, choose the languages and tap the microphone next to the one being spoken. It has a Conversation mode for back and forth and a Listening mode for one-way speech such as a talk. Samsung says Interpreter translates face-to-face conversations without Wi-Fi or data once the language packs are downloaded, in Settings, General management, Language packs. Under Settings, Galaxy AI, the Process data only on device switch blocks cloud processing altogether. Samsung also notes that signing in to a Samsung account is needed for the full set of features.

For phone calls, Samsung's Live Translate works through its own dialer. On Pixel 10 and later, Google's call translation, named Voice Translate on the Pixel 10 series, works without an internet connection for English with a set list of languages, Spanish among them. It is off by default: on Pixel 11 it is in Settings, System, Live Translate.

Before you rely on it abroad

• Apple Translate conversations: offline with both languages downloaded.
• AirPods Live Translation: processed on the iPhone once both languages are downloaded.
• Samsung Interpreter: no Wi-Fi or data needed with the language packs installed.
• Pixel call translation: works without an internet connection.
• Google Translate live translate: offline only on Pixel 9, 10 and 11 for the listed pairs; otherwise it needs data.

Test the one you plan to use in airplane mode at home, with someone reading a few sentences. None of these services publishes how much data an online session uses, so if yours needs a connection, reset the counter and measure one conversation, as shown in checking data usage on a travel eSIM. A data eSIM, such as Snoozim's, keeps the online options working wherever it has coverage.