Translify is an AI reading companion for foreign-language books. You upload a PDF or EPUB, Translify rebuilds it in your language with the original layout intact, then lets you chat with the whole book, highlight passages for AI explanations, and quiz yourself on what you read.

How is Translify different from Google Translate or DeepL?

Google Translate and DeepL translate text and return a file. Translify gives you a complete reading experience around the translation: chat with the whole book, AI-explained highlights, quiz mode, and side-by-side bilingual reading. It is a study tool, not a translation utility.

Is there a free trial?

Yes — every paid plan starts with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required. Translify also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on every paid plan, with no questions asked.

Which file types and languages does Translify support?

PDF and EPUB up to 200 MB per book. Translify supports 14 target languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Hindi, and Turkish — with correct rendering for right-to-left scripts and CJK characters.

Does the translation keep the book's layout?

Yes. Translify rebuilds every page with the same structure: paragraphs in the same place, images where they were, tables intact, headings preserved. A side-by-side mode lets you switch back to the source at any time.

How accurate are Translify's chat answers?

Every chat answer links back to the exact passage in the source — page number plus a highlighted excerpt. If a faithful citation cannot be found in the book, Translify says so rather than guessing. The underlying model is Anthropic's Claude.

Can I cancel any time?

Yes — one click in account settings. You keep access through the period you have already paid for, and Translify never auto-charges the day after cancellation.

Does Translify train AI models on my uploaded books?

No. Uploaded books are private to your account, encrypted at rest, and never used to train any AI model. You can delete a book and all its derivatives at any time from your library.

Can AI accurately translate technical academic papers?

For mainstream fields and major language pairs (e.g., German→English in physics, French→English in history), modern LLM translation is production-grade. Specialized terminology, citations, and equations are handled correctly. The risk areas: very niche subfields with non-standard terminology, mathematical notation embedded in prose, and humanities papers with heavy cultural reference.

How do I translate equations in a foreign-language paper?

Equations themselves are language-independent — they stay as they are. What needs translation is the prose around them ('we define X such that...', 'by substitution we obtain...'). Modern translation tools preserve LaTeX-formatted equations correctly; raster-image equations (in older scanned PDFs) need OCR with mathematical mode (Mathpix, Adobe Acrobat with math OCR) before translation.

What about citations and bibliographies in a foreign-language paper?

Citations should not be translated. Author names, journal titles, and DOIs stay in their original form. Most translation tools handle this correctly; the worst tools blindly translate everything including journal names. Verify that citations are preserved after translation, especially for footnotes.

Can I cite a paper I read only in AI translation?

Yes, with appropriate care. The standard academic practice: cite the original paper (with its original-language title), note in your text that you consulted a translation, and verify any direct quotations against the original. Many academic style guides have specific rules for this. The risk is misquotation when translation introduces error; for direct quotes, always verify the original.

What's the best AI tool for academic translation specifically?

For terminology-heavy academic prose, Claude 4.7 Opus has the strongest record. GPT-4o is close. DeepL produces fluent English but is less reliable on specialized vocabulary and longer arguments. For papers with mathematical content, any of the three works once the equations are properly extracted; the bottleneck is usually OCR quality, not translation quality.

How do I skim a paper in a language I don't speak?

The same way you skim in English: abstract, introduction, conclusion, figure captions. Translate these four sections first to decide whether the full paper is worth the time. AI handles section-by-section translation well — 30 seconds per section. For most papers, the abstract + introduction is enough to decide; for the rare paper that's directly relevant, translate the rest.

What about papers in non-Latin scripts (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Russian)?

Modern LLM translation handles non-Latin academic prose well in 2026. Chinese and Japanese scientific papers translate at near-publication quality. Arabic and Russian academic translation is solid but the script switch makes verification slower — you need a font that displays the original correctly alongside the English. Most academic PDF readers handle this; some web-based tools don't.

How to read academic papers in a foreign language with AI

Academic papers are shorter than books, denser than journalism, and full of terminology that general-purpose translators get wrong. The translation problem is also more pointed: you usually need to extract a specific argument or result, not enjoy the prose. This is a reference guide to reading academic papers in a foreign language with AI assistance — covering terminology preservation, equation handling, citation integrity, and how to skim a paper in a language you can't read at pace.

What makes academic translation different

Three properties separate academic translation from general translation:

Terminology must be exact

In a novel, “feeling” and “sensation” are interchangeable. In a phenomenology paper, they're not — they may refer to different things in the author's framework. Academic translation requires that the same source term maps to the same target term throughout the paper, even when context might naturally suggest different English words.

DeepL is the weakest of the major engines on this dimension. It translates well at the sentence level but loses cross-sentence consistency. LLM-based translation (Claude, GPT-4o) handles terminology consistency substantially better, especially when prompted to maintain a glossary across the document.

Citations are sacred

In-text citations, footnote references, and bibliography entries should never be translated. Author names stay as they are. Journal titles stay in their original language. A French paper citing a German source should produce an English translation that preserves the German citation exactly.

Most translation tools handle this correctly; some don't. Always spot- check citation preservation after translation.

Equations and figures are language-independent

Mathematical notation, chemical structures, and graphical figures are already in a universal scientific language. They don't need translation; they need to survive the translation process intact. What does need translation is the prose surrounding them — the captions, the variable definitions, the verbal descriptions of what the equation does.

The skim workflow

Most academic reading is skimming, not deep reading. You're trying to decide whether a paper is worth full attention. For foreign-language papers, the skim workflow:

Translate the abstract. 30 seconds. Decide whether the paper looks relevant.
Translate the introduction. 60-90 seconds. Identify the specific contribution.
Translate the conclusion. 30 seconds. Confirm the actual result.
Scan figure captions. The figures tell you what the paper actually did.

After these four steps, you'll know whether the rest of the paper is worth translating. For 90% of papers you find via citation chase or keyword search, the answer is no.

The deep-read workflow

For the 10% that are worth it:

Translate the full paper section by section, keeping the original accessible. Translify, Immersive Translate, and most browser-based academic readers handle this well. The original PDF remains; the translation appears alongside or on toggle.

Read the English translation at your normal academic pace. Mark passages where you need to verify against the original — usually:

Direct quotes you might cite. Always verify the original wording.
Technical claims that depend on a specific term. Check whether the English term is the standard rendering in your field.
Footnotes that the translator may have flattened. Long discursive footnotes (especially in humanities papers) sometimes get truncated.

For each mark, ask: what does the original literally say here? AI provides the word-by-word; you decide if the English captured it.

Specific issues by field

STEM (physics, math, CS, chemistry)

Translation is usually high-quality because the prose is structured and terminology is standardized. Main risk: mathematical notation embedded as raster images in older scanned PDFs. Run a math-OCR pass first (Mathpix, Adobe Acrobat with math mode) before translation. Once the equations are text, modern translation handles the surrounding prose correctly.

Life sciences (biology, medicine)

Strong translation quality for English-target. Latin binomial names (species names) should not be translated; verify these are preserved. Chemical names occasionally get over-translated — IUPAC names should be standardized across languages, but the LLM translators occasionally rephrase them. Spot-check.

Humanities (history, philosophy, literature)

The hardest case. Humanities papers carry the most cultural reference, the most untranslatable terminology, and the most prose register that depends on the original language. AI translation works but with more cross-verification needed than for STEM.

For history papers especially, keep an eye on proper nouns. Names of places, institutions, and historical figures sometimes get translated when they shouldn't (the German city “Hannover” sometimes becomes “Hanover” — fine in casual prose, but academic citation requires the original).

Social sciences (economics, sociology, political science)

Reliable translation quality. Field-specific terminology is standardized enough that LLM translation handles it well. Statistical terminology is universal.

Citation practices

If you cite a paper you read only in AI translation, document that appropriately. Most style guides require:

Cite the original paper with its original-language title.
If you quote directly, verify the original-language quotation and provide it (in parentheses or footnote) alongside the English.
If the translation matters (e.g., a translation in a humanities paper), note that you consulted an AI translation and that significant quotations were verified.

For unpublished or in-progress citation, AI translation is generally fine. For published work, particularly for direct quotes, verification against the original is necessary. The error rate of modern AI translation is low but nonzero, and academic publication standards require quotation accuracy.

Tools

For most academic translation: an LLM-based tool with PDF support. Translify, Immersive Translate, and the major academic readers (Sumatra, PDF Expert with extensions) handle this well. Cost is typically $10-$25/month for academic-volume use.

For scanned PDFs (older papers, archival material): run OCR first with a tool that handles mathematical content if the paper has equations. Adobe Acrobat or ABBYY FineReader. Then translate the OCR'd output.

For sensitive material (unpublished, embargoed): check the translation tool's data policy. Major LLM providers (Anthropic, OpenAI) do not train on API data by default in 2026, but the consumer-facing chat interfaces may. For confidential academic content, use an API-based tool with appropriate confidentiality settings.

Translify handles academic PDF translation with citation preservation, equation handling, and per-section translation. Try it free for 14 days at translify.app/onboarding.

Frequently asked

Can AI accurately translate technical academic papers?: For mainstream fields and major language pairs (e.g., German→English in physics, French→English in history), modern LLM translation is production-grade. Specialized terminology, citations, and equations are handled correctly. The risk areas: very niche subfields with non-standard terminology, mathematical notation embedded in prose, and humanities papers with heavy cultural reference.
How do I translate equations in a foreign-language paper?: Equations themselves are language-independent — they stay as they are. What needs translation is the prose around them ('we define X such that...', 'by substitution we obtain...'). Modern translation tools preserve LaTeX-formatted equations correctly; raster-image equations (in older scanned PDFs) need OCR with mathematical mode (Mathpix, Adobe Acrobat with math OCR) before translation.
What about citations and bibliographies in a foreign-language paper?: Citations should not be translated. Author names, journal titles, and DOIs stay in their original form. Most translation tools handle this correctly; the worst tools blindly translate everything including journal names. Verify that citations are preserved after translation, especially for footnotes.
Can I cite a paper I read only in AI translation?: Yes, with appropriate care. The standard academic practice: cite the original paper (with its original-language title), note in your text that you consulted a translation, and verify any direct quotations against the original. Many academic style guides have specific rules for this. The risk is misquotation when translation introduces error; for direct quotes, always verify the original.
What's the best AI tool for academic translation specifically?: For terminology-heavy academic prose, Claude 4.7 Opus has the strongest record. GPT-4o is close. DeepL produces fluent English but is less reliable on specialized vocabulary and longer arguments. For papers with mathematical content, any of the three works once the equations are properly extracted; the bottleneck is usually OCR quality, not translation quality.
How do I skim a paper in a language I don't speak?: The same way you skim in English: abstract, introduction, conclusion, figure captions. Translate these four sections first to decide whether the full paper is worth the time. AI handles section-by-section translation well — 30 seconds per section. For most papers, the abstract + introduction is enough to decide; for the rare paper that's directly relevant, translate the rest.
What about papers in non-Latin scripts (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Russian)?: Modern LLM translation handles non-Latin academic prose well in 2026. Chinese and Japanese scientific papers translate at near-publication quality. Arabic and Russian academic translation is solid but the script switch makes verification slower — you need a font that displays the original correctly alongside the English. Most academic PDF readers handle this; some web-based tools don't.

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