English and Chinese, in real time
SaviChat translates live between English and Chinese on video calls, voice calls, and messages, and aloud for in-person conversation. Both Simplified and Traditional Chinese are supported, so the written form matches where the other person is from.
Simplified or Traditional
Both are available and they are not interchangeable. Simplified Chinese is standard in mainland China and Singapore; Traditional is standard in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, and among many older diaspora communities. Picking the wrong one is legible but reads as careless, in the way that using the wrong alphabet variant would.
What tends to go wrong, and what to do about it
Chinese leaves out a great deal that English forces you to state: subjects, plurals, and tense often live in context rather than in the sentence. Machine translation into English fills those gaps by guessing, and it guesses wrong sometimes — which is why a message can come back oddly blunt or with the wrong person as the subject.
Names are the other recurring problem, since they are transliterated by sound and can come out unrecognisably. On calls, turn captions on for anything involving names, numbers, dates, or addresses and confirm them rather than trusting the audio.
Getting someone in China into the conversation
If the person you want to talk to will not install another app, send them a browser link — they can join a translated chat and take translated calls without an account. Note that SaviChat needs a working internet connection on both sides, and network conditions in mainland China vary.
What SaviChat does not do
- No offline mode — live translation needs an internet connection on both sides.
Common questions
Is there an app that translates English and Chinese on a video call?
Yes. SaviChat translates video and voice calls live between English and Chinese in both directions, with captions on screen. Simplified and Traditional Chinese are both supported.
Does it support Traditional Chinese as well as Simplified?
Yes, both are separate options. Choose Simplified for mainland China and Singapore, and Traditional for Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
How accurate is English–Chinese machine translation?
Good for everyday conversation, less reliable where Chinese omits information English requires — subjects, plurals, and tense are inferred and sometimes inferred wrongly. Names and numbers are worth confirming through captions rather than by ear.
Can the other person join without an account?
Yes. A browser invite link puts them in a translated conversation, including calls, with no account and no install.
Try SaviChat
Free to start. Translated calls, messages, and in-person conversation in 70+ languages.