5 Best Free Online Translators to Translate Foreign Language

Google Translate is the first name that comes to mind when we think of online translators, but there are many more you can try. If you are looking to translate that foreign language to one that you are familiar with, these are some that you can use.

1. Google Translate

I could start with something else, but since Google Translate is the most popular online translator, it makes sense to start with it. I can’t say if it is the best online translation service because this largely depends on what type of text you translate and which languages are involved, but it is a service that supports about 100 world languages. My personal experience with it is that the quality of translations is acceptable for machine translation.

In addition to online pages, you can also use Google Translate to translate documents. It offers a virtual keyboard as well as handwriting input with auto-completion. You can also listen to the translated text, share it, or save it for future use.

2. Online Translator

Online Translator is one of the best Google Translate alternatives out there. The list of supported languages is considerably shorter but still all the major languages, such as English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, German, French, Arabic, Hindi, Turkish, Hebrew, Greek, etc. are available. One of its unique features is that you can download it for offline use – this is a great option if you have confidentiality concerns and don’t want to upload sensitive info online. There is also a dictionary and grammar section, as well as examples, which is good if you want to learn more, not simply have your text translated.

3. Pragma 6

If you don’t like the first two online translators, there are more to try. For instance, Pragma 6 is a good alternative for less popular languages, such as Latvian, Ukrainian, Kazakh, Galician, etc. The tool has a free and paid version, and you can download it for offline use. If you want to integrate it on your site, this is possible, too.

4. Collins Dictionary

Collins Dictionary is a great online resource for English grammar and vocabulary, and it was a nice surprise to discover it offers a free online translation service. It doesn’t support as many languages as Google Translate but does offer about forty or fifty languages to choose from. The translator itself doesn’t have many perks, but I do think this is one of the best resources for English translations, maybe even better than Google Translate itself. There is also a version for Android and iPhone.

5. Online Doc Translator

While some of the other tools can be used to translate documents among other things, if you are looking for a tool made for this purpose in particular, try Online Doc Translator. According to its site, the tool preserves the layout of your documents, supports 104 languages, and requires neither installation, nor registration. The tool works with .doc, .docs, .xml, ppt, .pptx, .xls, .xlsx, .odt, .ods, .odp, .pdf, .str, .txt, and .rtf formats.

Quite possibly there are more good online translators, especially translators that don’t cover dozens of languages. For instance, WorldLingo offers more options than some of the tools on this list, but it only supports about ten languages. I wanted to include more universal resources, and this is why I searched for translators that support dozens or hundreds of languages.

Unfortunately, you can’t judge the quality of the translation from the number of languages a tool supports, but I believe no one trusts the translation blindly – the translation is just to get an idea of the meaning of a text, not to bet your life on it.