Top translation apps for travelers

Traveling abroad can be an incredible adventure, but the language barrier can make even the most intrepid explorer nervous. The fear of being unable to communicate or understand signs and menus keeps many would-be travelers from ever leaving their home country. But fear not. With the rise of powerful translation apps, you can harness the latest technology right on your smartphone to bridge the language gap wherever your journey takes you.

I've tested out the top contenders to bring you my picks for the best translation apps for global travelers. Whether you have an iPhone or an Android, these apps have got you covered with features like live speech translation, text input and even AI-powered sign and menu translation.

Google Translate is the best translation app for most people. It supports the most languages, with 133 languages supported. It also features an incredibly user-friendly interface and design, and best of all, it's completely free. There are multiple ways to translate languages with Google Translate, be it by typing text into the translation box or utilizing text-to-speech translation, and you can even take advantage of Google's AI translator, which can translate text from photos that you take.

There are a lot of different translation apps out there on the market aimed at travelers, and we highlighted our favorites today. While the majority of the apps in this list are free-to-use, and all the apps in this list have a free-to-use mode, you will need to pay for additional features from apps such as iTranslate.

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