We make OmniTalk, a translation app for iPhone. This page also recommends other apps where they win. The most important sentence first: in mainland China, the best translation app for China travel is an offline translation app for China, not a cloud app that works beautifully at home. If the app has to phone home for every sentence, it can fail on airport Wi-Fi, on a Chinese SIM, or on hotel broadband. We have not tested every app in this list inside mainland China on a current mainland SIM. Where that matters, the text says so rather than guessing.
The rule for China: download before you fly
The issue is not the App Store. It is reachability. Mainland China blocks or degrades many foreign cloud endpoints, and which ones changes without notice. An app that looks fine in London can sit there with a spinner in Chengdu. Offline language packs remove most of that.
What to download before you fly:
- The app itself. Do this while signed into your home App Store account.
- Simplified Chinese. Add Traditional Chinese if your trip includes Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan.
- The offline speech data if the app separates text pack from speech pack.
- Any PDF phrasebook or screenshot of addresses. OmniTalk has 30 printable travel phrasebooks at /phrasebook, but do not assume the hotel printer will work.
- After downloading, turn on aeroplane mode. Point the camera at a Chinese menu image. Run a two-way voice test. If it fails in aeroplane mode, it will not be more reliable on a bad connection.
The airport is too late because:
- Large language packs take minutes or hours on slow airport Wi-Fi.
- You may not yet have a local SIM or the local number needed to receive an SMS code for sign-in.
- The Chinese App Store may show different apps, or not show the app you installed from another region.
- Roaming can still route through odd endpoints before you buy a local SIM.
Simplified vs Traditional: download the right one
Mainland China uses simplified Chinese. Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use traditional. If you land in Shanghai and take a train to Hong Kong, a Hong Kong menu will not be simplified. Some signs in mainland tourist areas may use traditional on temples or calligraphy, but everyday text is simplified.
Set the language pack accordingly. If an app offers “Chinese” without a variant, check whether it is simplified.
Speech is separate. Mandarin is the official spoken language on the mainland and is what most translation apps handle. Cantonese is widely spoken in Hong Kong and Macau; do not assume a Mandarin voice pack will understand Cantonese.
Tones: speech translation will make mistakes
Mandarin has four main tones plus a neutral tone. The syllable “ma” can mean mother, hemp, horse or scold depending on pitch. Machine speech recognition is trained on this, but it still fails. Add traffic, station announcements, Sichuan or Fujian accents, and a phone held too far away, and accuracy drops.
How to use it:
- Short sentences.
- Do not let both people talk over each other.
- Put the phone between you like a table mic.
- If the output looks wrong, say the same thing with fewer words.
- OmniTalk’s free live conversation is one hour per month. The PRO tier is unlimited and uses a premium cloud speech engine. Because cloud reachability inside mainland China is the whole issue, test PRO before relying on it. The free tier uses Apple’s on-device speech recognition and translation, which works offline once the language pack is downloaded.
Camera translation on menus, signs and labels
Point the camera at Chinese text and a translated overlay appears. This works on menus, signs, labels and ticket screens. It works offline if the language pack is installed.
Chinese signage makes this harder than European travel. Vertical text, stylised calligraphy, glossy menu lamination, low light and reflections can all break the overlay. If the overlay jumps around, take a still photo and use text translation instead. Flat, well-lit, horizontal text works best.
On OmniTalk, camera and text translation are not metered, even on the free tier. The one-hour monthly limit applies only to live two-way conversation.
Payment and ticket-machine screens
China runs on Alipay and WeChat Pay. Many payment screens, mini-apps and ticket machines are in Chinese. OmniTalk does not integrate with WeChat or Alipay, and that is fine: you can translate what is on screen with the camera or a saved photo.
Screen glare and tiny fonts are hard for any camera translation. When possible, take a screenshot and run it through text translation. For ticket machines at high-speed rail stations, the machine may only show Chinese. A camera overlay can read “collect ticket” or “confirm payment”, but it will not press buttons for you.
Saved transcripts are useful for keeping a WeChat address or hotel name in Chinese to show a taxi driver.
The apps travellers actually install
This is not a controlled lab test. It is a practical shortlist. We have not verified every current offline pack and China compatibility for every app. Test before departure.
| App | Offline Simplified Chinese | Camera / text | Two-way voice | Price and limit | Main China risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OmniTalk | Yes, once pack downloaded | Yes, translated overlay; camera/text not metered | Yes; 1 hour/month free, PRO unlimited | Free tier; PRO paid. iOS only, 18.9 MiB, v1.0.6 | PRO cloud speech may be slow or unreachable; test on mainland network |
| Apple Translate | Yes, on-device packs | Yes | Yes, conversation mode | Free, pre-installed on iPhone | Lowest for offline use, but saved transcripts and travel phrasebooks are weaker |
| Google Translate | Yes, downloadable Chinese pack | Yes, camera and photo | Yes, conversation | Free | App may be hard to install once in China; Google endpoints are blocked |
| Microsoft Translator | Yes, offline packs | Yes | Yes, split-screen | Free | Cloud features may be affected; test offline |
| Baidu Translate | Yes | Yes | Yes | Free | Domestic app, likely reachable; may expect a Chinese phone number for some features |
| WeChat built-in translate | No standalone offline pack | Scan translate in WeChat | No | Free with WeChat | Useful because you will install WeChat anyway; needs connectivity for best results |
Where competitors genuinely win: if you have an Android phone, try Google Translate or Microsoft Translator before you fly. If you want the simplest iPhone fallback, Apple Translate is pre-installed and works offline. If you already use Baidu Maps or other Chinese apps and can read a little Chinese UI, Baidu Translate may be the least blocked domestic option. If you want camera and text translation that is not metered, plus saved transcripts and printable phrasebooks, OmniTalk is built for that, but live conversation is limited to one hour per month on the free tier.
Pre-flight checklist
Do this before boarding:
- Install the app at home.
- Download Simplified Chinese, plus Traditional if Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan is on the itinerary.
- Download any separate speech pack.
- Switch to aeroplane mode.
- Translate a Chinese menu photo.
- Run a two-way voice test.
- Save or print the /phrasebook pages you need.
If it does not work in aeroplane mode, replace it before departure. In mainland China, the offline pack is not a feature. It is the app.
A note on this table. We have not tested these apps on a mainland network ourselves. Treat the columns as a starting point for your own checking, not as a verified result. Reachability in China changes, and an article is a poor place to learn that it changed.