Apps for International Students: The Local Apps You'll Need in Your First Week Abroad (and How to Read Them)
Most lists of apps for international students are the same ten global names: a maps app, a currency converter, a flashcard app, a notes app. All fine. None of them decide how your first week abroad goes.
The ones that do are local. The bank your landlord expects a transfer from, the portal where your department posts deadlines, the chat app your whole seminar group is already in. You don’t get to choose them, because your host country chose them for you, and a good share of them only exist in the local language.
Here are the kinds of local apps you’ll end up installing, which tend to have an English option, and what to do on an iPhone when they don’t.
The apps for international students that nobody puts on a packing list
| Kind of app | What you’ll do in it | English option? |
|---|---|---|
| University portal | Course registration, grades, announcements | Sometimes, often partial |
| Banking | Open an account, pay rent, transfer money | Varies a lot by bank |
| Transit | Tickets, student passes, timetables | Big rail operators usually; city systems vary |
| Food delivery | Order dinner, write delivery notes | Varies by country |
| Second-hand marketplace | Desk, bike, rice cooker | Rarely |
| Health booking and insurance | Appointments, enrollment, claims | Rarely |
| Messaging | Class groups, landlord, clubs | Usually, with gaps |
Treat that last column as a rough pattern, not a promise. With any new app, open its settings and look for a language option first. If it has one, use it.
University portal and banking: the two you can’t skip
The university portal is where registration windows, room changes, and exam sign-ups live. Japanese universities commonly run systems such as Manaba and Campus Plan, in Japanese. Korean universities tend to run their own learning platforms in Korean. In Germany and France you’ll meet Moodle installs and ENT portals. Even where the login page offers English, department announcements are written in whatever language the office works in.
Banking is the high-stakes one. The main apps from Korean banks like Hana, Shinhan, and KB Kookmin are in Korean. Japan’s MUFG and SMBC apps are in Japanese. German banks such as Sparkasse offer limited English. Before assuming the worst, ask at the branch whether the bank has an English or foreign-resident version of its app. Some banks do, usually with fewer features.
One habit for any banking app you can’t fully read: check every field on the confirmation screen before you approve a transfer. Recipient, amount, date.
Study abroad apps for daily life: transit, food, second-hand, health
Transit. National rail apps, such as Deutsche Bahn’s in Germany, are the most likely to be usable in English. City transport apps and student-pass signup pages are less predictable.
Food delivery. Korea’s Baemin was Korean-only for years, and foreigners got by screenshotting menus into Papago. One trick still holds: save your address and a standard delivery note in the local script in Notes, so you can paste instead of type.
Second-hand marketplaces. Every country has a dominant local one, and it’s how students furnish a room cheaply. Listings are written by individuals, full of abbreviations and slang, so expect rougher translations than in a store app. Ask a classmate which marketplace people use, and the local word for what you’re hunting.
Health booking and insurance. France’s Ameli health insurance portal is in French. Choosing a German Krankenkasse means reading dense German. In Japan you may be handed a symptom questionnaire in Japanese before you see a doctor. Ask your international office for a list of English-speaking clinics, and sort out insurance before you’re ill, not during.
Messaging. KakaoTalk in Korea, LINE in Japan, WeChat in China. All three can be set to English, but pop-ups, notifications, and the services built inside them often stay in the local language.
Country-specific walkthroughs: Japanese apps in English, Korean apps in English, and German apps in English.
Why the built-in iPhone tricks stop at the app’s edge
- Safari page translation works on real web pages. If your portal or bank has a website version, try it in Safari first.
- Live Text and select-to-translate need text you can select, or a screenshot. Most native app interfaces give you nothing to select.
- Screenshot into Google Translate or Lens works, one screen at a time. Fine for a single screen. On a multi-screen enrollment form you lose your place on every round trip.
- Pasting text into Papago (Korean) or DeepL (European languages) is right for a careful read of a professor’s email. It doesn’t help with buttons you can’t copy.
All of these share one flaw for form-filling: they take you out of the app you’re trying to use.
Translating a local-language app while you use it
PiP Translate (listed on the App Store as PiP Screen Translate) is the app we make for this. You start an iOS screen broadcast from it, switch to the bank or portal, and a Picture in Picture window floats over that app showing the same screen with the text translated. You can drag it to any corner, pinch to resize it, or swipe it off the edge when it’s covering a button.
It covers 100+ languages, so the same app works for a Korean delivery app and a French benefits form. Set the source language to the local language; auto-detect exists, but a wrong guess comes back untranslated. What to expect:
- The translation trails the screen by about one to two seconds.
- Clean interface text such as menus, form labels, and buttons reads best. Very small print, handwriting, and decorative fonts are weak spots. Zooming in helps.
- Text recognition runs on the phone, and only the recognized text is sent to the cloud for translation. It needs a data connection, and it doesn’t change anything in the app underneath.
- A screen broadcast sees whatever is on your screen. If you’d rather it didn’t run while you type a banking password, stop the session and start it again afterwards.
It’s free to download. Unlimited translation needs a Pro subscription.
A first week abroad checklist
- Before you fly, ask your university which portal and which messaging app your program uses, and install them.
- Some local apps only show up in the host country’s App Store region, so an empty search result at home doesn’t mean the app is gone.
- Get mobile data sorted on day one. Screen translation, like most of the alternatives, needs a connection.
- For each new app: check settings for English, then try the website in Safari, then reach for a screen translator.
- Anything you sign gets a human reader: lease, insurance, bank contract. A translation tool is a first pass, not a lawyer.
- Keep learning the language. HelloTalk, Tandem, or your university’s language exchange will do more for you over a year than any translation tool.
PiP Translate is on the App Store. Set it up before your flight, so the first app you can’t read isn’t a surprise.