We do not always have on our side the necessary knowledge to understand according to which words in another language. Sometimes we even want or need to read certain information from a page or site that is in a completely unknown language. There are many very good translators. In the end, cataloging Mate Translate as the best is something that depends on what you are looking for, but in our opinion it is one of the most prominent and worth knowing. In this article we analyze this interesting translator for Mac.
Where to get Mate Translate
The Mate Translate application is available on the Mac App Store and is compatible with those Apple computers whose version of macOS is equal to or later than High Sierra, so there are many Macs on which it can be used.
However, far from the official Apple app store, it is also available on Setapp. This is a well-known application service that by paying a monthly or annual subscription allows access to hundreds of applications. Therefore, if you are a user of this service, you can easily find it without going through the App Store.
Mate Translate Price
The price, make no mistake, is high. 32.99 euros is what it costs to download Mate Translate from the App Store. It is true that in Setapp it is free, like the rest, but if you are not a user of this service you will have to checkout. Of course, we leave until the end the part in which we analyze if this price is really fair or if on the contrary it seems excessive for what is offered.
There is also a version on iOS and iPadOS
Perhaps this section would be worthy of analysis in a different article, since we are focusing on Mate Translate for Mac. However, we believe that this is worth mentioning and that is that you can also download it on your iPhone or iPad having functionalities adapted to their operating systems . Of course, we find a clear disadvantage in this regard and that is that you will have to pay it again even if you have bought it on the Mac before and vice versa. It has a price in these systems of 16.99 euros. As far as possible, we are fortunate that if you buy it on iPhone you will have it on iPad and vice versa, but it would be tremendously positive if the developer allowed a single payment to be made for having the application available on all computers.
Compatible in Safari and many more sites
Analyzing now the application as such and its operation, it must be said that it is an all-terrain tool because it is functional in many places in the system. Obviously the translation of Safari web pages is one of the most prominent and it works very well. Although if we take into account that since macOS Big Sur we already have a native translator in Safari, the truth is that Mate Translate goes to the background in this sense.
Where the application draws our attention the most is the possibility of translating a single word or certain selection of text on a web page. This is tremendously useful on occasions when we do not need to translate the entire page because either we already master the language and we miss a word or phrase or because we are simply learning that language. The way to do it is by means of the normal selection of the text, doing secondary click with the mouse or trackpad and choosing the option of Mate Translate. The translation appears in a small pop-up speech bubble that doesn’t make it intrusive.
The other great star functionality of Mate Translate is to be able to access the translator at any time thanks to its integration in the upper menu bar of the screen. If at any time we want to translate a text that we have in mind or that we copy directly from somewhere, we can easily do so by going to the corresponding icon of the application. It even has the possibility of listening to the pronunciation if we press the speaker icon.
Mate Translate settings and languages
The first thing we observe when going to the settings of this application is a keyboard shortcut that will be great to know to be able to open it at any time. Although by default it is Option / Alt Shift + T, we can change it to any other that is more comfortable for us. Then we find another series of very useful settings also in relation to how it works when starting the Mac or choosing to translate in Safari with a double click .
Up to 103 languages are available in this application, so you will hardly come across a language that is not accepted. Spanish, English, French, German or Chinese are among them, these being the most popular, but they are not the only ones as we have previously commented when mentioning the large number of languages that Mate Translate understands.
Translation quality
Unfortunately at this writing we are not polyglot enough to thoroughly analyze the level of translation of Mate Translate in each and every one of the languages in which it is available. However, taking into account the most common languages such as English, we can give it a very high grade in this regard. He is still a translator who in the end will never show a one hundred percent natural language, but is at the level of other great translators. Luckily, we have never come across one of those translations that seem to speak in Indian or translate everything literally. The application knows how to detect very well the way in which each language is expressed and translate it in an understandable way, so in this section, which is ultimately the most important, we can be more than satisfied.
Is it worth paying for it?
Like almost everything in life, it depends. Of what? Well, basically about you and your use of the Mac. In our case we have already commented that daily for professional reasons we dedicate ourselves to visiting numerous websites in languages other than our own, so it is a very useful and complete tool with which we get a great experience. In cases similar to ours, we believe that it is one of the best options and that in the long run it will pay off, especially due to the fact that it is a single payment that does not require after subscriptions. Now, if you are not used to translating on a daily basis and the use you make of these tools is negligible, we think that there may be other cheaper applications with lower benefits, but that will meet your needs without having to pay excessively.
