French Apps in English on iPhone: Leboncoin, Doctolib, Ameli and the Screens Nobody Translated for You
Moving to France means installing a dozen apps in your first month, and most of them assume you read French. Not café French either: lease French, reimbursement French, tax-form French. If you want to use French apps in English on your iPhone, the honest summary is that a few have an English setting, most don’t, and the ones tied to your paperwork are the least likely to.
This post follows the situations you will actually hit: buying a second-hand sofa, booking a doctor, decoding a message from the CAF.
First, check whether the app already speaks English
Three checks, in this order:
- The app’s own settings. Look in your account or profile for “Langue” or “Paramètres”. Doctolib and SNCF Connect have both offered English. Apps change, so look rather than assume.
- The iOS per-app language. Open Settings, find the app in the Apps list, and look for a Language row. It only appears when the app ships with more than one language and your iPhone has more than one preferred language set. No row means the app is French-only.
- The website in Safari. impots.gouv.fr, ameli.fr, caf.fr and leboncoin.fr all work in a browser, and Safari’s built-in page translation handles French. It is less dependable on multi-step forms, and it does nothing once a service pushes you into its native app.
Even with English switched on, expect French leftovers: error pop-ups, practitioner profiles, and anything typed by a human being.
French apps in English when there is no setting to flip
For everything else there is screen translation. PiP Translate (App Store name: PiP Screen Translate) works like this: you start an iOS screen broadcast from the app, switch to the French app, and a Picture in Picture window floats over it showing the same screen with the text in English. No screenshots, no switching apps.
You can drag the window to any corner, pinch to resize it, or swipe it off the edge when it covers a button you need. Text recognition happens on the phone, and only the recognised text goes to the cloud for translation. Set French as the source language rather than relying on auto-detect. The longer explanation: translate your iPhone screen live.
It reads the screen. It does not change the app underneath, so the buttons you tap are still the French ones.
Leboncoin English: sofas, flats and seller messages
Leboncoin is where France sells its furniture, cars and spare rooms. We are not aware of an English version of the app; run the three checks above, then plan on translating.
The listings follow conventions that are worth learning, because machine translation renders them literally:
| On the listing | What it means |
|---|---|
| à débattre | price is negotiable |
| prix ferme | price is not negotiable |
| remise en main propre | handover in person, no shipping |
| meublé / non meublé | furnished / unfurnished |
| CC (charges comprises) | rent includes building charges |
| HC (hors charges) | rent excludes them |
| T2, F2 | two main rooms: a living room plus one bedroom |
With the floating window open you can scroll results and read descriptions at normal speed. The message thread is where it helps most, because screenshotting a conversation one bubble at a time is miserable.
Two limits. The window reads; it does not write, so you still compose replies yourself (short, polite French from any text translator is fine). And before paying a deposit or signing a lease, get the actual document checked by someone who reads French properly.
Doctolib English: booking is the easy part
Doctolib is the good news. It has offered an English interface, and practitioner profiles usually list the languages spoken, so you can look for a doctor who will do the consultation in English.
The French comes back around the edges: the practitioner’s own description, the instructions attached to a booking (what to bring, where the entrance is), and terms that have no neat English equivalent:
- médecin traitant: your declared regular GP
- secteur 1 / secteur 2: whether the doctor charges the standard regulated fee or sets their own
- tiers payant: you do not pay the covered part up front
- ordonnance: prescription
Translating these screens is not medical advice, and it should not be how you interpret a dosage or a test result. Ask the pharmacist or the doctor.
Ameli, CAF, impots.gouv: understand the screen, verify the decision
These govern your health cover, housing benefit, taxes and residence permit, in administrative French that native speakers complain about too.
What a floating translation is good for here:
- Reading a status message in Ameli or the CAF app so you know whether it is routine or a request for a missing document.
- Working through a long form while seeing what each field asks for, without losing your place between screens.
- Finding the right menu: “attestation de droits”, “relevé d’identité bancaire” and “justificatif de domicile” come up constantly.
What it is not good for: deciding what to declare. A translated tax form tells you what the box is called, not what French tax law expects you to put in it. For anything binding, such as a declaration, a benefit claim or a residence permit file, confirm with the office itself, a bilingual accountant, or a French-speaking friend before you submit. Documents you hand in to the authorities generally need a sworn translator (traducteur assermenté), not an app.
On privacy: only recognised text leaves the phone, but you can simply stop the broadcast when you do not need it. Some banking apps blank their content while the screen is being captured, and then there is nothing to translate.
Trains, bills and the long tail
Lower stakes, so a good place to practise:
- SNCF Connect: has offered English, though French messages still surface.
- EDF and Engie: bill line items and contract options.
- Île-de-France Mobilités: Navigo passes and top-ups around Paris.
- SeLoger and PAP: flat hunting alongside Leboncoin.
- France Travail, La Poste, Vinted, your commune’s parking app: check the settings, then translate the screen.
Students arriving for a semester should also see apps for international students. If your next move is across the Rhine, there is a companion piece on German apps in English.
Limits worth knowing before you rely on it
- The translation trails the screen by about one to two seconds. Scroll, pause, read.
- Very small text, such as the fine print on a bill, comes out better if you zoom in first.
- Stylised fonts and handwriting are weak spots. Typed interface text is the strong one.
- The app is free to download; unlimited translation requires a Pro subscription.
None of this replaces learning French. It just means your first year of admin does not have to wait for it.
Living somewhere else in Europe? The same approach covers Italian apps like Subito and Poste Italiane, German apps, Allegro in Poland, Trendyol in Turkey, Idealista for flats in Spain and Portugal, Funda and Marktplaats and Blocket and Hemnet.
PiP Translate is on the App Store. Open it once, switch to Leboncoin or Ameli, and read the screen in English.