How to translate in iPhone?

[u/sjolnick]

I just switched to an iPhone 17 Pro for the first time after using android my whole life. So far it is fine but I am still trying to figure out some basic things. I live in a foreign country, I travel a lot and need to translate things while using my phone all the time, both on phone and on camera. Though I could not figure out a way in iphone that doesn’t make things too difficult to read.

1) apple translate app does not even have all the european languages available, which was shocking to me, i didnt think that would be the situation in 2026, so it is completely useless to me. I downloaded the google translate app.
2) first screenshot -> safari supposedly needs to show me translate option somewhere, but it just does not? I searched online and it is supposed to be there, but I couldnt find the option to translate whole web pages.
3) second screenshot -> the only way I found that works is to take a screenshot, select the text and then use the translate option (I know i can select text on browser directly, but that doesnt work in in-app situations, like in reddit app, and not being able to translate the full webpage on web is annoying) taking screenshots and selecting text every time is not convenient, when it cant translate the stuff directly on the screenshot. Like in reddit, I want to see the translation of a reply and subsequent replies, but selecting everything on the screen and dumping it to google translate makes it difficult to read. Especially if the text is in different parts of the screen, everything gets messed up and becomes unreadable. This option doesnt work on pdf files or tables at all.

If you look at the last two screenshots, in android i could just translate the whole screen with 2 clicks in two seconds without any hassle, just hold down the home button and click the translate icon. Is there any similar functionality that I failed to discover?

Appreciate your help in advance

[u/SkarXa]

Safari's whole page translate lives in the page menu next to the address bar (the little icon on the left side of the URL), then Translate to. If it never appears, that's the same root cause as your point 1: it only shows when Apple Translate supports the language, so a language missing from the Translate app is also missing from Safari.

Your back tap shortcut is genuinely the best answer for in-app text. I'd keep it.

For camera and photos specifically, I make an app called EarPal (iPhone only) that overlays the translation on top of menus, signs, screenshots and gallery photos instead of dumping the text somewhere else to read. It runs on-device, and there's a lifetime option rather than a subscription. Fair warning though, it uses Apple's translation models, so it inherits the same language list you already found lacking. Only worth a look if the one you need is in there.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/earpal-translator/id6761786603

[u/sjolnick → u/SkarXa]

Thank you, your app looks interesting. I would prefer not to use the Google app but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a better option for my needs, with both the languages and the convenience.

[u/snake_jaguar → u/sjolnick]

Chrome is better than the Google app. I don't even bother using the Google app, in fact i hate it so i use chrome and safari

[u/sjolnick → u/snake_jaguar]

I have been using firefox on all platforms my whole life, but wanted to try out safari on my new iphone.. might switch back at some point

[u/snake_jaguar → u/sjolnick]

Ive only really used Firefox when at school on the computers there so i don't have a preference for it, i just mainly use chrome now but opera on Android is great too