Google Translate or a Koine Station for the conversation across the table?
For a one-off chat with a visitor, Google Translate's live translate mode is free, already on their phone and covers over 70 spoken languages. It is the right tool. For a room where the same kind of conversation happens every week, a parent meeting, a counter, a church foyer, Koine Station is a tablet that stays paired to that room: both people read their own half of a shared screen or use their own phones, the organization keeps a record only if it chooses to, and nobody hands a personal phone across the table.
What each one publishes.
Every figure about Google Translate below is what Google states on its own help pages, blog and store listings, checked on 17 September 2026. A dash means we could not find it advertised, not that it does not exist. The sources are linked under the table.
| What | Google Translate | Koine Station |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A free app on a phone. Its live translate mode, called Conversation inside the app, listens to both people and speaks and shows the translation. Google describes it as "back-and-forth conversations in over 70 languages with audio and on-screen translations". | A 10-inch tablet paired once to one room. Its home screen offers two choices: run the lesson or meeting to every phone, or hold a conversation across the table. |
| What each person holds | One shared phone. In face-to-face mode "each speaker can view the transcription and translation of each of their own languages on each half of the screen", or one person listens on headphones. A two-phone mode is not advertised. | Nothing of their own. The tablet lies flat between you with a split view and speaks through its speaker. Or each person scans a QR code and reads and listens on their own phone. Or, in pilot, a USB headset each. |
| Languages | 73 languages for live speech on Google's own list, over 100 for text. Offline live speech: 10 languages paired with English, on Pixel 9, 10 and 11 phones only. | 70 languages, 57 of them with translated voice. Needs the room's Wi-Fi. |
| How the conversation runs | "Take turns speaking." The microphone "automatically detects when one language stops and the other language starts". Two languages per session. | In turn, two languages. Each side reads the other's words in its own language; either language's speech can be muted to text only; seats can be swapped; pause and end are one tap. |
| People at once | Google documents two speakers and two languages. A maximum number of people is not advertised. | Two on the shared tablet or on their own phones. Three or four with the USB headset kit, which is in pilot. |
| Price | Free on Android and iOS. No paid tier or in-app purchase is advertised. | The same language-hours as every Koine session: one per language, only while the microphone is on, on the organization's plan. The tablet, stand and microphone kit are quoted per room. |
| What is kept afterwards | A transcript of the conversation shows on screen while it runs. Saving or exporting a conversation is not advertised. General translation history syncs to a Google account when Web & App Activity is on. | Nothing, unless you choose it. A conversation can be kept privately in the library; a school's default is live-only with no recording. |
| Where the data goes | —. Google publishes on-device and no-storage statements for Pixel call translation, a different feature; for the Translate app's conversations we found no statement. | Live audio is relayed through servers in Amsterdam; accounts and session details are stored in Stockholm. OpenAI's speech and translation runs outside the EU today, and EU processing for it is scheduled. |
| Needs internet | For live speech, yes, apart from the ten English-paired languages on the three Pixel models. Text translation works offline in 59 languages. | Yes. The room's Wi-Fi. |
| Where it wins | Free, downloaded more than a billion times from Google Play, no setup, works in the street and, per Google, "in busy airports or at a noisy cafe". Camera translation in 94 languages. Over 100 text languages. | It stays in the room and is ready in one tap. Both people read at once. No personal phone changes hands. A record when you want one. The same tablet runs the meeting to every phone in the evening. |
Sources: Google's help page Hear live speech to speech translations with live translate, the Google blog post on live translate and language learning (August 2025), the Google Play listing, the App Store listing and Google's translation history help page, all checked 17 September 2026. Koine figures are from the Station page, pricing and the privacy policy. If a figure is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
When Google Translate is the better choice
Most conversations that need translating are not in a room you control. They happen in a corridor, a car park, a shop, on a walk. For those, the app the other person already has on their phone wins on every count that matters: it costs nothing, it needs no setup, and Google says it is built to cope with "busy airports" and "a noisy cafe". If the visitor speaks one of the thirty-odd languages Google covers and Koine does not, the choice is made for you.
It also wins when the exchange is short. Asking which bus to take does not need a tablet on a stand. And Google's camera translation, 94 languages pointed at a sign or a form, has no equivalent on a station at all.
One thing to check before you rely on it: Google's AI live translate launched in the United States, India and Mexico in August 2025, and the headphone version was still an Android beta in three countries at the end of that year. What the app can do in your country on the day you need it is worth a two-minute test in advance.
When Koine Station is
Some conversations happen in the same room every week, with a different person each time: the parent meeting after the parents' evening, the resident at the municipal counter, the visitor who stays behind after the service. Three things change when that is your situation.
The first is who holds what. With one phone, one person is holding their personal device out to a stranger, and the other is reading half of a small screen upside down or waiting for their turn with it. On the station the tablet lies flat between you, split into two halves, each in its own language, and it belongs to the room rather than to either person. If people would rather use their own phones, the tablet shows one QR code per language and each of them reads and listens there.
The second is what happens afterwards. Google shows the transcript while the conversation runs; saving or exporting it is not advertised. A station keeps nothing unless the organization decides it should, and when it does, the record lands in the organization's own library, not in a member of staff's personal translation history.
The third is that the tablet is already there. It is paired once, locked behind a PIN, updated from the console, and the same device runs the lesson or the meeting to every phone in the room an hour later. Nobody's phone battery, storage or app version is part of the plan.
What the table cannot show
Both of these are machine translation. Google's own store listing hedges with "Feature support varies by language", and we make no claim that Koine translates better than Google, or the other way round. The differences we can compare are in who holds what, what is kept, and where it runs.
Neither replaces a qualified interpreter where the law or the stakes require one. In Norway, public bodies have a duty under the Interpreting Act to use a qualified interpreter in the situations it covers, and a conversation with legal, medical or financial consequences is not the place for either tool. The comparison with an interpreter sets that out.
Finally, Google's strongest privacy statements, translation that stays on the device and audio that is never stored, are published for Pixel call translation, which is a different feature from the Translate app's conversation mode. We could not find an equivalent statement for the app, so the table shows a dash rather than a guess.
Common questions.
Does Google Translate still have a conversation mode?
Yes. In 2025 Google rebuilt it around its Gemini models and now calls the feature "live translate"; the mode inside it is still labelled Conversation. Google describes it as back-and-forth conversation in over 70 languages, taking turns, on one phone.
Can two phones join one Google Translate conversation?
Not that Google advertises. Its documentation describes one phone with the screen split in two, or one person listening on headphones. On a Koine Station, each person can scan a QR code and use their own phone, in the browser, with nothing installed.
Does either one work without internet?
Google Translate translates text offline in 59 languages, and live speech offline in ten languages paired with English on Pixel 9, 10 and 11 phones. Koine Station needs the room's Wi-Fi; the translation runs on Koine's servers.
Is a Koine Station conversation recorded?
Only if the organization turns that on. By default nothing is kept, and a school's default is live-only. When a conversation is kept, it sits in the organization's library, with retention the organization controls.
Is either acceptable where an interpreter is required?
No. Where Norwegian law or the nature of the conversation calls for a qualified interpreter, use one. Both tools are for the everyday conversations an organization could never have booked an interpreter for.
What does a Koine Station conversation cost?
The same language-hours as any Koine session, one per language, only while the microphone is on, drawn from the organization's plan. The hardware is quoted per room. Google Translate is free.