Voice, reading aloud & translation
Free translators from Google and Apple now speak translations straight into headphones, and Google's covers more than 240 languages without charging a penny. Read-aloud and transcription apps are where the subscriptions sit, and the same voice technology can clone a person from a few seconds of audio. In a 2024 Starling Bank survey 28% of UK adults said they might have been targeted by a voice-clone scam, so the cloning features in ElevenLabs and Speechify are flagged here rather than recommended.
Updated monthly.
Kenning's picks
Ranked by Kenning score out of 25. Tools scoring 12 or less are marked not recommended.
Google Translate
Google Translate is free with no paid tier, and Which? found it the best all-round free translator in a 2025 test with native speakers, though its conversation mode often failed to spot which language was being spoken. Since March 2026 it can speak live translations into any pair of headphones on iPhone and Android, which Apple's version cannot match without AirPods. Text goes to Google's servers and is saved to the Google account when signed in.
Best for Holidays, menus, signs and quick chats in almost any language
Apple Translate
Apple Translate costs nothing and runs on the phone itself once both languages are downloaded, so nothing needs to leave the device. Which? found Live Translation through AirPods generally accurate in July 2026, but its 2025 test of the app on its own found enough errors to send iPhone owners to Google Translate or DeepL. It covers 30 languages and accents after iOS 27, against Google's 240-plus.
Best for iPhone and AirPods owners who want offline, on-device translation in common languages
ElevenLabs (ElevenReader and ElevenLabs app)
ElevenReader gives 10 hours of listening a month free, enough for about a 400-page book, and a totally blind user reviews user said its new v4 voices are hard to tell from a recorded audiobook. Paying users complain about lost reading positions and buggy updates, and a reviewer found fiction dialogue flat. The same company sells voice cloning that Consumer Reports found relied on a tick-box promise of consent, and clones made this way are the raw material of phone scams.
Best for Listening to PDFs, articles and non-fiction on the move, and people with sight loss
TurboScribe
TurboScribe transcribes three files of up to 30 minutes a day free, and unlimited hours for $20 a month or $120 a year, which reviewers say beats per-minute rivals for interviews, lectures and podcasts. It is a website only with no phone app, and speaker labels slip when people talk over each other. It says it does not train AI on uploaded files, but one user reviews user was refused a refund after an annual plan renewed unnoticed.
Best for Transcribing recorded interviews, lectures and voice notes on a computer
Naver Papago
Papago is free and covers just 14 languages, but reviewers testing it in Korea and Japan found its menu, handwriting and conversation translations more natural than Google's. Offline text translation only works for Korean, English, Japanese and Chinese, and camera and voice need a connection. Naver's privacy policy says personal data, including images and voice, is used for AI development with no clear way to opt out.
Best for Trips to Korea, Japan or China, and fans following Korean posts
DeepL
DeepL gave the most accurate spoken translations in Which?'s 2025 test with native speakers, and Beebom rates it best for accuracy, mainly in European languages. The free version allows 50,000 characters a month and its privacy policy says free-tier text is used to train its models, which paid plans avoid. Through 2026 a run of user posts from translators complained that quality had dropped, and the company cut about 250 of its 1,000 staff in May.
Best for Emails, letters and documents in French, German, Spanish and other European languages
Speechify
Reviewers rate Speechify's reader among the most polished for dyslexic readers and students, and the camera scan reads printed pages aloud. Premium costs $29 a month or $139 a year, the free plan keeps 10 robotic voices, and user threads are full of trial-billing and refund complaints. In July 2026 the Consumer Federation of America asked the FTC to investigate its voice cloning, which it said needs only seconds of audio and a self-attestation tick box.
Best for Dyslexic readers and students working through long PDFs on the annual plan
More tools
@Voice Aloud Reader
Free, ad-supported Android reader for PDFs, ebooks and web pages, with different voices for book characters.
BiRead
Browser add-on that shows web pages in two languages side by side, useful for reading and language learning.
ChatGPT Translate
OpenAI's free translation page in ChatGPT, covering about 50 languages with adjustable tone and style
Dub AI
Translates the speech in a video into 40+ languages while keeping each speaker's own voice.
ElevenLabs Audiobooks
ElevenLabs tool for authors to narrate, edit and publish audiobooks with AI voices
ElevenLabs Image & Video
ElevenLabs feature for generating images and videos with outside models, then adding voice and music
ElevenLabs Studio Agent
Chat-based AI co-editor in ElevenLabs Studio that drafts videos and syncs sound to footage
ElevenLabs Voice Design v3
ElevenLabs tool that creates a new AI voice from a written description
Fish Audio
Turns typed text into natural-sounding speech and can copy a voice from a short recording.
Happy Scribe
Transcription and subtitle service in 150+ languages with optional human proofreading.
Hi Translate
Android app with a floating bubble that translates chats inside WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.
iTranslate
Long-running subscription translator with voice conversations, offline mode and a phrasebook in 100+ languages.
Live Transcribe
Google's free Android app that captions speech on screen in real time for deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
MacWhisper
Mac app that transcribes recordings and meetings entirely on the computer, so audio never leaves the machine.
Microsoft Translator
Microsoft's free translator for text, speech and photos in 100+ languages. The multi-device group conversation feature has been retired.
NaturalReader
Text-to-speech reader for documents, web pages and photographed pages, with AI summaries and voice cloning.
Read-This.ai
Reads web articles aloud in natural AI voices, at any speed, for listening on the move.
Talk & Translate
MobiSystems' voice, text and photo translator with offline mode and a subscription upsell.
Translate Now
Chart-topping subscription translator for text, voice and photos with a translation keyboard.
Voice Dream Reader
Accessibility-first read-aloud app for PDFs, ebooks and web pages, with full VoiceOver and braille display support.