How to Translate Webpages in Safari iPhone?

It is easy to find the content in English language since millions of websites use it as a primary language. Translating is the best option available for you when you are not able to understand the English written content. You can translate a word, phrase, sentence or the entire webpage. Did you any time wonder how you can translate webpage content to your favorite language while reading it on Safari iPhone? Here is how you can add languages in iPhone and translate entire webpage content in Safari to added languages.

Translating Webpages in Safari

Safari browser in iPhone comes with many features and translation is one of the least used among them. This feature was added from iOS 14 and you do not need any third-party extensions for this purpose. However, there are few important things you need to understand for using translation in Safari iPhone.

• Online – translation feature works only on online.
• Privacy – the content of the webpage will be sent to Apple for translating.
• Add target languages – you need to manually add all the required target languages in settings so that they appear in the list for selection in Safari.  

Add Target Language for Translation

Apple automatically includes multiple languages in iOS setup when you buy iPhone in certain countries. For example, you will find both Chinese and English languages are pre-installed when you buy iPhone from China. However, this may not be the case with iPhones sold in USA or UK and probably you will only see English. At any case, you need to add all required languages for the translation to work in Safari.

• Open Settings app and go to “General” section.
• Tap on “Language & Region” option and check under “Preferred Languages” heading.

• You will see the current list of languages available and the apps will use the first language in the list as a preferred language.
• For adding a new language, tap on “Add Language…” link.
• Select a language from the list and iPhone will prompt you to confirm whether you want to change the preferred language. Choose the new language or tap existing language to use it as your preferred language.

If you have added too many languages, tap on “Edit” option on top right corner and delete the language from the list. Whether you add or delete a language, iPhone will restart and update the settings. This will be a quick refresh and you will not see the Apple logo which you will see with normal shut down and restart.

Translating Entire Webpage Content in Safari

Follow the below steps after adding required languages. I will translate a page from English to Chinese as an example.

• Launch Safari and open the website you want to translate.
• Tap on the _AA icon showing at the left corner of the address bar.
• Select “Translate to Chinese” as Chinese is the only language available other than English in my case.

• Safari will ask your confirmation that the site address and content will be sent to Apple for processing. Confirm the action by pressing “Enable Translation” option.

• Now, you will see the entire webpage content is translated to Chinese. The _AA icon in the address bar will show as translation icon indicating the page is translated.

• For translating back to the original language, tap on the translation icon in the address bar and select “View Original” option.

This is a good way to translate the entire webpage in Safari. You can download the translated page offline as a PDF file. For that, tap on Share icon and then “Options” button. Select “PDF” or “Reader PDF” and save the file to your iPhone or iCloud drive.

Translating Words or Phrase

If you want to translate a sentence or words, then tap and select the content. You will see a pop-up toolbar and use the right arrow to find “Translate” option in that toolbar. Tap on “Translate” option to get the translation for the selected content. This also needs internet connection to work.

Final Remarks

Remember that machine translations will never have a quality equivalent to human written content. However, the idea is at least you can read the page and grasp the meaning. If you find unacceptable translation, tap on _AA icon and select “Report Translation Issue” option. You can report the issue to Apple so that they will improve in future.

If you are not interested in sending data to Apple or using online mode, then you can try the default Translate app. The app allows you to download the language files and use in On-Device Mode (under “Settings > Translate” section) to work offline without internet connection.