Use this free Chinese to English translator and converter to get instant results right in your browser. It works with both Simplified and Traditional Chinese, so whether your text comes from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Singapore, you'll get a clear English translation without switching tools.
Open the TranslatorThis tool sends your Chinese text through a fast, free translation engine first, which handles everyday English translation accurately. For idioms or figurative language that don't translate literally, an optional secondary engine can be switched on from Settings for extra accuracy — most everyday translations never need it though.
Type or paste your Chinese text into the translator, select English as the target language, and the translation appears within a second or two. Auto-detect can also figure out that your text is Chinese without you selecting it manually, which is handy if you've copied text from an image, a chat message, or a document and aren't sure of the exact script. The tool supports voice input, so you can speak Chinese instead of typing, and it can read the English translation back to you out loud once it's ready. Everything runs directly in your browser, so there's no software to install and no account to create first. It works the same way whether you're translating a single word, a full sentence, or a longer paragraph, on a phone, tablet, or desktop browser. You can copy the finished translation with one tap or save it to your history for later.
Yes, completely. Translating from Chinese to English costs nothing, requires no sign-up, and has no hidden daily limit that suddenly appears after a few uses. The core translation engine is free by default. If you want extra accuracy on idioms or slang that don't translate literally, you can optionally add your own free API key in Settings, which switches on a more careful secondary engine for those specific cases — but that step is entirely optional and most everyday Chinese to English translations don't need it. Your translation history is saved locally in your own browser rather than on a server, so you're free to use the tool as often as you like without ever being asked to upgrade, register, or pay for continued access.
Yes. You can paste text in either Simplified Chinese, which is standard in mainland China and Singapore, or Traditional Chinese, which is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, and the translator will detect the script automatically and convert it to English. If your source text mixes both scripts, which happens occasionally with text copied from different sources, the tool still processes it without needing you to specify which variant you're using. For most everyday sentences the English result is the same regardless of which script the original was written in, since the meaning rather than the script is what's being translated.
If you need to go the other way, our English to Chinese translator handles that direction with the same free, instant setup — no separate tool or sign-up required. For tips on getting accurate results and avoiding common mistakes, see our guide to translating English to Chinese online.
Need a different language pair, or want to convert a document instead? See our full AI translator, or the Word to PDF converter.