The automatic language detection feature is hidden inside the Share Charm and not exposed anywhere else in the UI. For traditional PC users, this is very disappointing as the app is geared mostly for touch users. The big disappointment of the app is the poor user interface and usability. You can select a translation and report to Microsoft if the translation was correct or incorrect.

Microsoft could have The app keeps a history of your translations and lets you edit and copy them. This also requires internet access though. I hope in the future that Microsoft makes available more offline language packs.įinally, there is a feature to play back a spoken version of the translation through text-to-speech. The offline feature is what got me intrigued as there aren't many free offline translation apps for Windows. Offline translation is less accurate than online translation but still it's a great feature as you can avoid expensive data roaming charges. As of this writing, language packs are available for translation to and from English to Simplified Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. The Bing Translator app has downloadable language packs to translate in offline mode when an internet connection is not available. Voice translation requires an internet connection however.

With the January 2014 update, the app now supports speech input too for select languages so you can translate just by speaking in short phrases. You can point your camera at street signs and posters in foreign languages, restaurant menus, newspapers or any printed text which you don't understand and the app instantly shows an overlay of the translated text. In camera mode, the app will use optical character recognition and augmented reality technology to do a real time machine translation. The Bing Translator app supports text translation by typing or copy-paste in 40 languages.įor some limited number of languages, you can translate using your device camera. One of the more interesting features (which first arrived in the Google Translate app) is downloadable language packs which can translate even when you are offline.Īll the language translation pairs are powered by Microsoft's statistical Machine Translation system, developed by Microsoft Research. The app supports 3 ways to translate text - by typing, by speech input or by using the camera. The Bing Translator app is only available as a Modern app in the Windows Store for Windows 8/8.1 and Windows RT platforms.

Offline voice translator app free