Offline Whisperer

Offline Whisperer is a translation assistant that recognizes speech instantly, translates it and reads the translation aloud in the target language. Speak English and hear it in Turkish; speak Turkish and hear it in English. I, Berke Özyaşar, built this app as a personal project and published it ad-free on Google Play.

Who it is for

It was designed for shopkeepers who need to talk to tourists, people traveling abroad, anyone who wants to get a short sentence across correctly in a business meeting, and language learners. The goal is to put the phone between two people and simply talk, without typing.

Features

• Real-time speech recognition: what you say into the microphone appears on screen instantly
• Live transcript: you can follow what was said in writing
• Two-way translation: switch direction from English to Turkish or Turkish to English with a single tap
• Automatic text-to-speech: once the translation is ready, it is read aloud in the target language
• Ad-free

Technical approach

The app's flow has three steps: converting speech to text, translating the text into the target language and reading the result aloud. If any one of these steps slows down, the whole experience breaks, so each of them needed to be visible to the user.

I built the app with React Native and combined speech recognition and text-to-speech in a single flow. The most important thing in a voice translation app is that switching between the two languages does not wear the user out. That is why I made the language direction switchable with one tap, made speech visible with a live transcript and had the voice playback start automatically once the translation is done.

My other travel-focused language app, Phrase Port, offers ready-made phrases in 61 languages. If you are planning an app with speech recognition and a voice interface, take a look at the mobile app development page.

Status

Offline Whisperer is live on Google Play for Android.