There are some apps that really stand out for being genuinely useful and Bing Translator is one of them. The app was released some time back on Windows Phone 7 and has rightly proved to be incredibly popular due to its slick operation and advanced features.
The app has been updated to support Windows Phone 8 and you can now initiate the augmented translation mode by using the new lenses feature.
Along with that you can also opt to download full offline translation packs for Simplified Chinese, English, French, German and Italian. Grab the packs you need for your trip and you don’t have to worry about a data connection and the associated charges while you’re away. On my last trip I found the app worked brilliantly with the offline translation I threw at it.
If you’re keen on improving your own skills you can enable the live tile to show you a word of the day so you can keep in the game. The Windows Phone 7 version was a top performer anyway and the Windows Phone 8 version is likewise slick and well designed. The only issue I can see is that my offline language packs are taking forever to download at the moment and I am seeing a “Sorry, can’t download that right now, try again later” message. I’ll keep trying, if you folks are seeing the same issue be sure to let us know in the comments.
You can grab the app from the Windows Phone Store
