Translation Isn't Working

SpeakerView translates your cards using Apple’s built-in Translation feature, which runs entirely on your iPhone — it doesn’t use SpeakerView’s own servers (SpeakerView doesn’t have any). Almost all translation issues come down to one thing: the language hasn’t finished downloading yet.

“Translation is stuck on ‘Translating…’” or seems to hang

The very first time you translate into any given language, your iPhone needs to download a small language model for it (roughly 50–200 MB, depending on the language). This requires an active Wi-Fi connection — it will not download over cellular data. If you’re translating for the first time and you’re not on Wi-Fi:

1. Connect to Wi-Fi.
2. Try the translation again.

Once a language model has been downloaded once, translating into that language again works completely offline — including on stage with no signal at all.

“I got a ‘Translation failed’ message”

This appears when Apple’s Translation framework itself reports an error (for example, if the download was interrupted, or your device ran out of storage space mid-download). Try:

1. Confirm you have enough free storage on your device (Settings → General → iPhone Storage).
2. Reconnect to Wi-Fi and try translating again.
3. Restart SpeakerView and retry — this clears any stuck translation session.

If the message persists after trying the above, reach out through our support page with the exact error text — it’ll help us pin down what’s happening.

“I want to pre-download a language before I travel”

There isn’t a way to pre-download a language from inside SpeakerView directly — the download is triggered by Apple’s Translation system the first time you actually translate into that language. If you know you’ll need a language while offline (e.g., traveling to give a talk), translate a test card into it once while you still have Wi-Fi, before you leave.

“The translation looks wrong / awkward in my language”

SpeakerView passes your text to Apple’s on-device Translation engine and displays exactly what it returns — SpeakerView doesn’t alter the translated wording. If a specific phrase reads oddly, it’s worth rewording the original English (or source-language) sentence to be simpler and more literal; on-device translation engines generally do better with plain, direct phrasing than with idioms or wordplay.

“My translation disappeared”

Translations are tied to the specific speech they were created from. If you import a new .txt file, the previous translation is cleared, since it belonged to the old speech. This is expected — just re-translate after importing your new file. See Importing a Speech File.

Which languages are supported?

See Supported Languages for Translation for the full list.