You know that speaking with people in countries where your first language is not spoken is one of the hardest things about traveling a lot. English is taught as a second language in many places. There are a few people who can speak English in tourist spots, but they are few and far between.

For most tourists, Google Translate is the best way to translate anything. You can use text or voice to enter more than 200 languages, and it works well anywhere. One problem with Google Translate, though, is that it comes from Google, so it might not work in places where Google isn’t allowed.

China is the biggest of these. You can’t use any Google services there, at least not without a VPN, but there are other translation services you can use. The iPhone translation app and an option driven by Microsoft both work pretty well, but on my most recent trip, I found a much better one. This is why this AI translation on my phone is the best.

Check out the Oppo Find X8 Ultra’s AI translation tool.

I was in China for two weeks, meeting with Oppo, going to the launch of the Find X8 Ultra, and talking with different people and businesses in Shenzhen. As I’ve used Didi (China’s version of Uber) to get around, eaten in restaurants, bought some of the best Chinese phones, and held business meetings, I’ve been using Chinese all the time. The only trouble is that I don’t know how to talk Mandarin.

Now we come to the Oppo Find X8 Ultra, which has my favorite escape button on a phone. In some languages, you can figure out what a word means just by looking at it. But I can’t read Mandarin.

Narveen Gondhia / Digital Trends: The Oppo Find X8 Ultra has an AI translation app
If you want to translate something on the Find X8 Ultra, you can either take a picture of it or a screenshot of what’s showing on the screen at the moment. There isn’t an option to Gemini Live that can translate everything on the screen in real time, which is the only bad thing about what is otherwise a great translation experience.

The end result is being able to understand and become part of the society where you are. Buying tech stuff in Huaqiangbei, which is China’s biggest tech market? It’s quick and simple to get answers, ask questions, and agree on a price. Want to translate a food menu where the pictures or English versions that come with it don’t make sense? The translation app will do the rest. All you have to do is take a picture.

It helps a lot in talks, especially when you’re going back and forth.

Made for having talks

One of the most surprising things about my trip was how many people were using AI translation apps. The owner of a market stall, someone getting drinks at a bar, or someone ordering food at a restaurant all use translation apps on their phones, so it makes sense to use one too.

This makes it simple to talk to someone through a phone app. But none of the apps I saw other people use were better than Oppo’s new translation app. It’s powered by DeepSeek and is very fast and powerful. Most importantly, friends and people I met told me it was also very accurate.

One big reason I’ll always bring a Find X8 Ultra with me on trips is the app. It only works on phones with a Chinese ROM, but I found that it’s not that different from the world ROM. You can get rid of almost every app that came with it, and installing the Google Play Store is as easy as tapping a button. Other than that, it seems to work the same as any other phone you can buy.

Narveen Gondhia / Digital Trends: The Oppo Find X8 Ultra has an AI translation app
The app can translate more than just pictures or photos. It can also translate words you type or a voice recording. Another mode is conversation. You can have a live conversation where two people talk back and forth in real time, or you can have a more quiet conversation where you start and stop recording in different languages.

The second one has an important bonus as well: it stores your chat information. There’s one thing that makes this translation app the best I’ve ever used.

Is this how people will learn languages in the future?

Narveen Gondhia / Digital Trends: The Oppo Find X8 Ultra has an AI translation app
Have you ever tried to learn a different language? This is one of the hardest things to do because most translation apps make you learn a lot of things you don’t need to know before they show you what you do need to know.

I learn a language much faster by using it and being immersed in it than by studying it in a classroom. The chat history tool is my secret weapon for quickly learning key words that I ask a lot. I don’t need to know all four tones of Mandarin, because each one can change the meaning of the word it’s connected to. But I do need to know what to say and how to say it correctly.

This is especially important if you have food allergies and need to ask the same question over and over again. For someone with a life-threatening allergy, being able to look at the same translation as many times as they want is very helpful, instead of having to ask for it over and over again.

I found something else: this is great for learning a new language. To understand a language well enough for my needs, I don’t need to know everything about it. I learned key words quickly by listening to them over and over. After doing that, I turned the language pair around and read them backwards until I got the right English version.

As the saying goes, practice makes perfect, and saying these sentences over and over again has helped them stick in my mind. This app taught me more than 30 new Mandarin words in just four days. It taught me how to say them and how to tell when someone is saying them. This makes me feel a lot better about my plans to learn Mandarin. Even though I just got back from China yesterday, I’ve already learned three more words that I can’t wait to use.

I don’t know about you, but learning a new language has always been hard for me. I finally feel good about my chances for the first time. In addition to being correct and easy to use, it’s also very handy, as I can keep learning even when I’m not online. It’s like playing a game with yourself while you learn a language. I’m excited to learn even more and use what I’ve learned when I go back to China next time.