Comparison

Google Translate vs Nihongo

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Google Translate

Instantly translate text, voice, and images between hundreds of languages. Features include offline translation, real-time conversation translation, and the ability to save frequently used phrases.

Highlights
  • Text translation
  • Offline translation
  • Instant camera translation
  • Photo translation
  • Voice translation
  • Conversation translation
  • Phrasebook
Read full description

Translate between up to 249 languages. Feature support varies by language: • Text: Translate between languages by typing • Offline: Translate with no internet connection • Instant camera translation: Translate text in images instantly by just pointing your camera • Photos: Translate text in taken or imported photos • Dictation: Translate spoken words and phrases • Conversations: Translate bilingual conversations on the fly • Transcribe: Continuously translate someone speaking a different language in near real-time • Handwriting: Draw text characters instead of typing • Phrasebook: Star and save translated words and phrases for future reference Permissions notice: • Microphone for speech translation • Camera for translating text via the camera • Photos for importing photos from your library Translations between the following languages are supported: Abkhaz, Acehnese, Acholi, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alur, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Assamese, Avar, Awadhi, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Balinese, Baluchi, Bambara, Baoulé, Bashkir, Basque, Batak Karo, Batak Simalungun, Batak Toba, Belarusian, Bemba, Bengali, Betawi, Bhojpuri, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Buryat, Cantonese, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chechen, Chichewa, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Chuukese, Chuvash, Corsican, Crimean Tatar (Cyrillic), Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dhivehi, Dinka, Dogri, Dombe, Dutch, Dyula, Dzongkha, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Ewe, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, Fon, French, French (Canada), Frisian, Friulian, Fulani, Ga, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Guarani, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hakha Chin, Hausa, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hiligaynon, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Hunsrik, Iban, Icelandic, Igbo, Ilocano, Indonesian, Inuktut (Latin), Inuktut (Syllabics), Irish, Italian, Jamaican Patois, Japanese, Javanese, Jingpo, Kalaallisut, Kannada, Kanuri, Kapampangan, Kazakh, Khasi, Khmer, Kiga, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kituba, Kokborok, Komi, Konkani, Korean, Krio, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Kurdish (Sorani), Kyrgyz, Lao, Latgalian, Latin, Latvian, Ligurian, Limburgish, Lingala, Lithuanian, Lombard, Luganda, Luo, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Madurese, Maithili, Makassar, Malagasy, Malay, Malay (Jawi), Malayalam, Maltese, Mam, Manx, Maori, Marathi, Marshallese, Marwadi, Mauritian Creole, Meadow Mari, Meiteilon (Manipuri), Minang, Mizo, Mongolian, Myanmar (Burmese), Nahuatl (Eastern Huasteca), Ndau, Ndebele (South), Nepalbhasa (Newari), Nepali, NKo, Norwegian, Nuer, Occitan, Odia (Oriya), Oromo, Ossetian, Pangasinan, Papiamento, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Punjabi (Gurmukhi), Punjabi (Shahmukhi), Quechua, Qʼeqchiʼ, Romani, Romanian, Rundi, Russian, Sami (North), Samoan, Sango, Sanskrit, Santali (Latin), Santali (Ol Chiki), Scots Gaelic, Sepedi, Serbian, Sesotho, Seychellois Creole, Shan, Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Sindhi, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Sundanese, Susu, Swahili, Swati, Swedish, Tahitian, Tajik, Tamazight, Tamazight (Tifinagh), Tamil, Tatar, Telugu, Tetum, Thai, Tibetan, Tigrinya, Tiv, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tulu, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen, Tuvan, Twi, Udmurt, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek, Venda, Venetian, Vietnamese, Waray, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yakut, Yiddish, Yoruba, Yucatec Maya, Zapotec, Zulu

About

Nihongo

This app is an offline Japanese study tool that functions as a dictionary, translator, and flashcard creator. It helps users learn Japanese by analyzing text from their surroundings, such as signs and menus, and creating personalized study materials.

Highlights
  • Offline Japanese dictionary
  • Picture-to-text translation (OCR)
  • Automatic flashcard creation
  • Reading assistant with furigana/romaji
  • Spaced repetition flashcards
  • Search in English, Japanese, or romaji
Features
Read full description

Nihongo is an offline Japanese dictionary, picture-to-text translator, flashcard app, and reading assistant. Our app helps you learn Japanese naturally, using the words you encounter in daily life—on menus, signs, manga, emails, books, and more. In addition to the dictionary, you can take a picture of Japanese text or paste it from any source. Nihongo will then translate the text, add furigana or romaji, and create flashcards so you can study and steadily build your vocabulary. Here are the complete features of the app: DICTIONARY * Over 200,000 words, 205,000 example sentences, and 6000 kanji entries. * Every word clearly marked as common, uncommon, or rare. * Add your own notes to any dictionary entry. * Quickly identify transitive/intransitive word pairs. * Audio pronunciations of words and example sentences (Requires Nihongo Pro) PHOTO LOOKUP (OCR) [Pro] * Look up words just by taking a picture. * Uses Google Cloud Vision to provide high-quality text recognition. * Just tap on a word to look it up. CLIPPINGS (READING ASSISTANT) [Pro] * Adds furigana or romaji to text pasted into the app. * Tap on any word to see its definition without leaving the clipping. * Flashcard deck automatically created so you can study the new words in a clipping. * Display text horizontally or vertically. * Have Nihongo read any clipping out loud. FLASHCARDS [Pro] * Flashcards automatically generated from words you lookup in the dictionary or paste into the app. * Nihongo learns what words you know, and won't bother you again with words you've mastered. * Built-in kanji flashcard decks up through Middle School. * Intuitive spaced repetition flashcard system for vocabulary and kanji drawing. * Level up flashcards by studying every day. * No penalty for missing a day of study, come back anytime. SEARCH * Search using English, Japanese, or romaji. * Supports searching for conjugated words in both English and Japanese. * Search for kanji using radicals and stroke counts. SAFARI EXTENSION [Pro] * Add furigana or romaji to webpages. * Tap on words to see definition within Safari. Nihongo Pro Terms of Use Read our full Terms of Service at https://nihongo-app.com/terms_of_use.html. This app is only possible because of the JMDict (edrdg.org) and Tatoeba (tatoeba.org) projects. I highly encourage you to support these incredible projects that make apps like Nihongo possible!

Screenshots

Google Translate4 screens
Nihongo4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Nihongo at 91% against Google Translate's 41%. Nihongo also leads on rating (4.8 vs 4.3). Google Translate's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 6) and ratings volume (84K vs 1.9K). On price, update cadence, ads and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Nihongo sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Google Translate asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Nihongo holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Google Translate has 84K ratings behind it against 1.9K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 41% of Google Translate's written reviews are positive against 91% of Nihongo's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Google Translate ships an update weekly, Nihongo every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on September 25, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
Google Translate versus Nihongo: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGoogle TranslateNihongo
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.3 (84K ratings)4.8 (1.9K ratings) — better
Positive reviews41.1% of reviews91.2% of reviews — better
Number of ratings84K — better1.9K
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 6 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFreemium
Best chart rank#1 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.0 — better18.6
Further details — not scored
Size295 MB491 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperGoogleSerpenti Sei Japan

Customer experience

Google Translate

All ratings83,720 ratings
Positive81.2%
Neutral5.3%
Negative13.4%
Written reviews1,449 reviews
Positive41.1%
Neutral11.2%
Negative47.6%

Nihongo

All ratings1,850 ratings
Positive95.5%
Neutral2.5%
Negative2.0%
Written reviews261 reviews
Positive91.2%
Neutral4.6%
Negative4.2%

User reviews

Google Translate

From 84K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Spoken Cantonese & Jyutping recently added
  • 🚀 Fantastic for translating on the go
  • 👍 Easy to navigate
  • 👍 Useful for learning languages
  • 👍 Offline translation available

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Inaccurate translations for some languages
  • 🐛 Buggy camera/image translation
  • 🐛 Inconsistent translation of formal/informal language
  • 🐛 Slow performance, especially offline
  • 🐛 Cluttered interface, poor UX design

Nihongo

From 1.9K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Excellent dictionary
  • 👍 Comprehensive features
  • 🔒 Offline compatibility
  • 👍 Helpful example sentences
  • 👍 Intuitive interface

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional bugs and glitches
  • 💰 Subscription model could be expensive
  • 🔍 Difficult to manage flashcards

Bugs and requests

Google Translate

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Camera translation not working without internet connection
  • Inability to select and translate specific text in images
  • Inconsistent translation of words with multiple meanings
  • Predictive text feature providing inaccurate suggestions

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add more language support, especially for minority languages
  • Improve accuracy of translations, especially for Asian languages
  • Allow manual selection of text in image translation
  • Add option to toggle between formal and informal language
  • Improve offline performance and functionality

Nihongo

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Freezing issues when tapping on kanji
  • Font size problems
  • Inconsistent OCR and translation accuracy

Requested features

5 requests
  • Handwriting input support
  • Customizable flashcard settings
  • Monolingual dictionary feature
  • Improved backup and sync functionality
  • Statistics and progress tracking

In-app purchases

None

Google Translate

No in-app purchases

5 purchases

Nihongo

Subscriptions3
  • Nihongo Pro (Monthly)7 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • Nihongo Pro (3 Months)7 Days trial$11.993 Months
  • Nihongo Pro (Annual)7 Days trial$49.991 Year
One-time2
  • Pitch Accents$9.99
  • Nihongo Pro (Lifetime)2 variants$179.99

Questions

Is Google Translate free?
Google Translate is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Nihongo free?
Nihongo is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Google Translate or Nihongo?
Nihongo is rated higher. Google Translate averages 4.3 out of 5 from 84K ratings, while Nihongo averages 4.8 from 1.9K ratings.
Do Google Translate or Nihongo have ads?
Neither Google Translate nor Nihongo shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Google Translate or Nihongo?
Google Translate ships an update weekly, and Nihongo every 6 days. Most recently, Google Translate was updated on September 25, 2026 and Nihongo on September 23, 2026.

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