Speaker (English)
Hi — do you know where the nearest U-Bahn station is?
Hallo, wissen Sie, wo die nächste U-Bahn-Station ist?
Hello Hallo
Live translation
English ↔ German
through one pair of earbuds.
Share an earbud. Pick English and German. Each of you hears the other in your own language, live.
A sample exchange
Three turns between English and German, the way they'd actually go. Each card shows the original line above the translation.
Speaker (German)
Ja, gleich um die Ecke, auf der linken Seite.
Yes — just around the corner, on the left.
Speaker (English)
Thank you, that's very kind.
Vielen Dank, sehr nett von Ihnen.
What metcha supports for this pair
| English | German | |
|---|---|---|
| Apple on-device translation | ✓ | ✓ |
| Deepgram cloud STT | ✓ | ✓ |
| iOS built-in voices | ✓ | ✓ |
| ElevenLabs premium voices (Plus) | 6 voices | 4 voices |
| Voice cloning (Plus, your voice) | ✓ | ✓ |
Why metcha for this pair
English ↔ German is well-supported across all four pipeline stages. The main subtlety is the formal/informal split — German has a real grammatical difference between Sie and du, and metcha's Better Translation path on metcha Plus picks register based on context (a service interaction vs. a casual conversation).
Common phrases
Hand-picked phrases for everyday German-speaking situations. In metcha you don't need to memorize these — but they're useful to anchor what the app sounds like before you try it.
- Greeting
-
English: Hello, good day.
German: Hallo, guten Tag.
- Thank you
-
English: Thank you very much.
German: Vielen Dank.
- Apology
-
English: Sorry, I don't speak German.
German: Entschuldigung, ich spreche kein Deutsch.
- Café
-
English: A coffee, please.
German: Einen Kaffee, bitte.
- Directions
-
English: How do I get to the central station?
German: Wie komme ich zum Hauptbahnhof?
- Restaurant
-
English: I'd like to see the menu, please.
German: Ich hätte gern die Speisekarte, bitte.
- Bill
-
English: The bill, please.
German: Die Rechnung, bitte.
- Hotel
-
English: I have a reservation.
German: Ich habe eine Reservierung.
- Help
-
English: Could you help me, please?
German: Können Sie mir bitte helfen?
- Pharmacy
-
English: Do you have something for a cold?
German: Haben Sie etwas gegen Erkältung?
Where you'd use it
- Travel in Germany — Berlin, Munich, Hamburg
- Travel in Austria or Switzerland
- Business trips for European tech and engineering work
- Hotel front desk welcoming international guests For hotels →
Common questions
- Does metcha translate German to English as well as English to German?
- Yes, both directions run in the same session. When someone speaks English, the other person hears it in German; when they reply in German, you hear it in English. There is no direction to configure and no turn-taking button. See how it works for the full walkthrough.
- Is English ↔ German translation in metcha on-device or cloud?
- Both. metcha's free tier uses Apple's on-device Translation framework where supported (available for both English and German). metcha Plus optionally routes through a Better Translation cloud path for more natural phrasing, with a quiet fallback to the on-device path when the network is slow.
- Do I need both AirPods to use metcha for English and German?
- No. The simplest mode is one earbud each — you keep one, the other person keeps the other. metcha handles both directions through that single shared pair. If you'd rather both wear your own earbuds, you can pair a second phone in seconds via a QR code (still no app install for the other person).
- What about regional accents within German?
- metcha's Deepgram STT path handles major regional variants of German robustly. The on-device path is more sensitive to accent — if you find the free path missing words, switching to the metcha Plus cloud STT usually fixes it without changing anything else about the conversation.
- Does it work without internet?
- The free on-device path works fully offline once the relevant Apple Translation language packs are downloaded. metcha Plus features that depend on Deepgram, Better Translation, or ElevenLabs voices need a network connection.
- How many voices does metcha ship for German?
- 4 curated native-German voices on metcha Plus, plus all iOS built-in voices on the free tier (and any Enhanced or Premium voices you've installed in Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content).
- Are conversations private?
- metcha does not store conversations on our servers, and none of our providers retain audio for training. The free on-device path never sends audio off your phone at all. See the privacy policy for the full data-handling story.