Description
Tova Translate is the camera, voice, and text translator built for travel in China, across Asia, and beyond.
WHAT MAKES TOVA DIFFERENT
• Real Hanyu Pinyin for Mandarin — above every character, in real time
• Real Jyutping for Cantonese — not Mandarin pinyin mapped onto Cantonese
• Real romaji for Japanese — above every kana and kanji
• Real revised romanization for Korean — above every hangul syllable
• 118 target languages, 11 camera scripts, full per-character readings
WORKS OFFLINE IN CHINA — NO VPN
When the backend is unreachable, Apple's on-device Translation framework kicks in automatically. No setup, no detours.
LIVE CAMERA OCR
Point your camera at a sign, menu, or contract. Tova detects the text and overlays per-character readings in real time. Works across Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Arabic, Hebrew, Devanagari, Tibetan, and more.
TWO-WAY VOICE TRANSLATION
On-device speech recognition with natural voice playback. Speak naturally — Tova hears you, transcribes you, translates you, and reads the result back.
BOARDROOM MODE — 3-WAY LIVE TRANSLATION
Three speakers, three languages, one conversation. Tova hears all three voices and translates between every pair in real time. Perfect for international meetings, cross-cultural family dinners, and multilingual group travel.
OFFLINE PHRASE PACKS
29 curated travel phrase packs plus the complete CC-CEDICT Chinese dictionary. Download once, use forever.
SAVED PHRASES
Build a personal phrase library you can play back anytime.
TIERS
• Free — Camera OCR, two-way voice, 118 languages, offline in China
• Pro — Saved phrases, premium engines, common replies, glossary, Boardroom 3-way mode, document OCR, PDF upload
Tova Translate is free on the App Store. Pro subscriptions auto-renew until canceled in iOS Settings.
STUDY WHAT YOU TRANSLATE — TOVA LEARN CHINESE
Send any Chinese word straight to Tova Learn Chinese, our free companion study app. Tap the Learn icon on a result and the characters, pinyin, and meaning carry over automatically, ready to practice.
Terms: https://tovatranslate.app/terms/
Privacy: https://tovatranslate.app/privacy/
What's new (v1.0.7)
NEW: Study the Chinese you translate
Send any Chinese word straight to Tova Learn Chinese — our free companion study app — and its pinyin and meaning carry over automatically. Just tap the Learn icon on a result.
• Stability and performance improvements
• Bug fixes across the camera, voice, and translate tabs
Questions? support@tovatranslate.app