# Waygo - Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Translator — user reviews > 198 indexed App Store user reviews of Waygo by Translate Abroad, rated 3.20/5 from 132 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/waygo-chinese-japanese-and-korean-translator/id496038103/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/waygo-chinese-japanese-and-korean-translator/id496038103.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 54 · 4★ 20 · 3★ 7 · 2★ 4 · 1★ 47 ## What do users think of Waygo? Overall sentiment: negative **Pros** - 🚀 Fast and accurate translations - 👍 Useful for navigating menus and signs in China/Japan - 👍 Offline functionality **Cons** - 🐛 Poor recognition of handwritten/stylized characters - 🐛 Inconsistent and inaccurate translations - 🔋 High battery consumption - 💰 Expensive paid version **Commonly reported bugs** - Crashes on newer iOS versions - Fails to recognize text even in ideal conditions - Paid version not working as expected **Most requested features** - Support for more languages (e.g. Thai, Korean) - Improved translation accuracy and consistency - Unlimited free scans per day ## Newest reviews (16 of 198) ### 2/5 — An okay app *2020-05-21* I use Waygo for chinese, I understand that it is a hard app to make but the charge for the premium version is too much and if you don’t get it you only get 10 translations a day a poor amount when translating lots of text. As well as this the translations are usually incorrect. ### 1/5 — わるいです- awful *2020-03-31* Tried using in my Japanese textbooks with very poor results. Even google translate is better and that’s free. ### 1/5 — Free translations excellent; Paid is HORRIBLE *2020-03-19, version 6.17* Got this app to help with translation of very small Japanese print. Tested multi-line translation with the free app and it worked brilliantly. Bought the paid unlimited translation for Japanese only, and immediately saw a difference. What once translated as (Light Red 50%) now translates as TUNA or Shy, or other ridiculous phrases. Do yourself a favor, don't even bother with the free version, let alone pay for the unlimited version. ### 1/5 — Not working *2020-03-12* Really bad! Has not been working properly since I’ve purchased it. It is not translating or translating it wrong! Don’t buy it ### 2/5 — It crashes *2020-03-07, version 6.17* Please update the app, it crashes when I use it in iphone 11. ### 1/5 — Didn’t help me *2020-02-17* I downloaded it to read cooking instructions for some Japanese food I bought. Just one short paragraph. I tried it and it told me I had 0 free translations left of 10 per day even though this was the only time that I ever used it. It then prompted me to buy the full app. Not a good way to attract customers. ### 1/5 — Junk *2020-01-17, version 6.17* Does not work at all - junk!!! ### 1/5 — Useless *2019-12-05, version 6.17* While in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, the app was of no help. Chinese traveling with me laughed at the things it came up with. ### 2/5 — Please Add History *2019-11-14, version 6.17* My hand brushed a button and erased my translation. If there were a HISTORY button, I could have resumed what I was doing. My loss. Please consider. ### 1/5 — Paid for upgrade but will not install / restore upgrade *2019-10-28* I paid for the Chinese version, followed the directions how to “Restore” the upgrade, removed Waygo, tried again. No joy. Tried upgrading to the full, three language version. No joy. Contacted the developer. No joy. I can only hope I did not get charged because I want to run, not walk, away from this app. ### 1/5 — Poor translation *2019-10-22* So far its provided bery poor inaccurate transalations ### 1/5 — Waygo - Japanese *2019-09-26* Marginal at best. Useable information from the app less than 20% of the time. This is true for labels, menus, signage. Especially poor with stylized scripts. The best thing I can say is that it’s better than nothing, but not by much. Glad it didn’t cost more than $8USD. ### 1/5 — Completely useless - don’t waste your money *2019-09-25* I downloaded the app for a trip to Japan and the app (specifically the camera tool) was hopeless. It rarely recognises words correctly and it is cumbersome to use compared to a free trial app like translate now. Don’t be tempted by advertised offline use like I was - at least for Japanese it most definitely doesn’t work. ### 4/5 — Perfect *2019-09-09* Funktioniert hervorragend, ich konnte während meines Aufenthalts in China so gut wie jede Speisekarte übersetzen ### 1/5 — Poor quality *2019-09-07* Laggy and the translations are questionable at best. Only works up close. By the time you focus and get two words translated, the free trial is over. Waste of time and I wouldn’t spend money on it. ### 1/5 — Useless in Japan *2019-07-06, version 6.17* Everything says “fatty tuna”. Don’t buy for japan. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Useless *2025-04-12, version 6.17* This app it’s useless doesn’t translate anything in Japanese. I’m very disappointed. Please refund my money now. ### 1/5 — Does not work *2025-03-18, version 6.17* Tried using the app multiple times, but it always says it can’t find any Japanese text between the brackets. ### 1/5 — Useless *2024-11-29* Doesn’t work! The text box says there’s no test when there clearly is. If I just point the camera for an instant translation, it’s just a jumble of flickering words which are meaningless. What rubbish! ### 1/5 — Crashes quite often *2023-11-11* Short text in Chinese in vertical columns is translated as horizontal text. Pure nonsense. No way to switch to vertical mode - app crashes. ### 1/5 — Would rate this a zero if I could!! Such a waste!! *2023-08-08* I got this app because my grandmas mom gave her this vase years ago and it has Chinese letters on it and we don’t know what it says. Once I got the app it immediately took me to a button that said free trial. I went along with it and took the picture of the vase and it didn’t translate!! I pressed the button translate and it kicked me out of the entire app!! Don’t get this app!! ### 1/5 — lol doesn’t work *2020-12-28, version 6.17* I tried translating japanese characters on a mask that had Kokichi Ouma on it and all it did was translate everything that wasn’t Japanese 😃 ### 1/5 — Doesn’t even work for one character translation *2020-10-04* I don’t know why it won’t even translate single characters. It keeps telling me there is no text in the box no matter how clear the picture is, or where I space it between the orange brackets. And this is a single typed character on a white piece of paper to test the app. It’s way too finicky for me to bother with. ### 1/5 — Not in Macau *2020-09-18* I really want this to work. I paid for it. Yet it just doesn’t, it’s so disappointing. ### 1/5 — Seriously *2020-05-06* The app tried to translate the shadows on my blanket from Japanese then tells me I need to pay for more translations. What a JOKE!. No idea what my Japanese says but the blanket has somethIng “DELICIOUS!!” In it somewhere! ### 1/5 — No good *2020-04-26, version 6.17* This app is useless and does absolutely nothing. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Schlägt die Brücke zum Japanischen *2022-04-16* Eine super App um sich im japanischen Umfeld zurecht zu finden! ### 5/5 — Great! *2020-05-06* Such a fcken good app for free! I have mandarin homework I cba to do so I scan it and boom! Done... ### 5/5 — Great app ! *2020-03-31* Easy to use. Perfect ! ### 5/5 — I love it—helps with foreign language students! *2019-09-17* It is very close to perfect. The only problem is that it has constraints on the text you are translating. Other then that,(and the ads) it’s great and hopefully it gets further developed 👍 ### 5/5 — Must have app in China *2018-10-15* Can’t use Chinese apps without this. All I do is screenshot and import into Waygo if I don’t know what to do. Problem solved! ### 5/5 — Very useful app *2018-10-04, version 6.17* It can take a few goes to get the translation right sometimes, and it can take a few more goes if there’s a lot of varying colours/shapes behind the text, but usually translates it without hassle and all-in-all a very useful app for a tourist in China, Japan or Korea. ### 5/5 — Works very well *2018-05-15* A little trouble with handwritten or dark background but really very useful ### 5/5 — Makes life easy! *2018-04-24* This has become a tool I cannot live without in China! So quick at translations. Thank you! ### 5/5 — So valuable! *2018-04-19* I spent 5 weeks in China and this was life changing. I was able read menus which was the most fun and entertaining. With all the choices in every restaurant large or small, i was able to try all the things i wanted! I read menus like novels so it was incredible! It was great for reading train tickets, signage and descriptions. I brought back ingredients and have been able to translate the packaging and recipes in Asian grocery stores here in the US! ### 5/5 — Great app for traveling *2018-02-06* Very useful app while in Asia. It comes handy to navigate menus written in Chinese. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-09.*