Papago is the app many people open in Seoul to read a menu or get through a quick chat with a shopkeeper. It's NAVER's everyday translator, built around Korean and a focused set of Asian and European languages, and on a phone it does that job well.
Things change when the Korean lands in your inbox at work and the reply has to read well, not just make sense. Lexibird is built for that. The two differences that matter most: you choose the AI model behind each translation, and text translation covers more than 200 languages, with documents, glossaries, and audio in the same app.
At a glance
| Lexibird | Naver Papago | |
|---|---|---|
| Translation engine | Choose Claude, GPT, or Gemini models, or Auto | NAVER's own neural machine translation |
| Text translation languages | 200+ | Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese, and about a dozen more |
| Document formats | PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, XLIFF, and more | PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, HWP/HWPX |
| Glossaries | Your terms given to the AI as context | Exact-match term priority in NAVER Cloud workflows |
| Audio | Transcribe recordings, dictate, listen at adjustable speed | Voice translation |
| Desktop | macOS and Windows apps with a global shortcut and screen capture | Web and mobile focus |
What is Lexibird?
Lexibird (formerly Translatium) is a translator for the work you do at a computer rather than on the go. Client emails, contracts, slide decks, and recorded calls go through leading AI models that pay attention to context, tone, and idioms, and teams can share one set of approved terms.
What is Naver Papago?
Naver Papago is a translator developed by NAVER, widely used in Korea and across Asia. It translates text, images, handwriting, voice, conversations, websites, and documents, offers offline translation in its mobile app, and is best known for its Korean translations.
1. You choose the model, not just the language pair
Papago runs every request through NAVER's own translation engine. That works well for everyday Korean, but when a result sounds stiff, there is nothing else to try.
In Lexibird, you can pick from Claude, GPT, and Gemini model families, or leave it on Auto. Say you're replying to a Korean client who wrote "검토해 보겠습니다" ("we'll look into it"), which in business Korean often means a polite no. A word-for-word engine hands you the literal sentence. With AI translation that reads context, you get the meaning, and you can switch the tone to formal before you write back. If one model's phrasing doesn't land, run it through another and compare. Premium models are available on paid plans.
2. Languages beyond Papago's core set
Papago's main translator covers Korean, English, Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Portuguese, Italian, Hindi, and Arabic, with availability varying by feature. For a Korea-focused workflow, that may be enough.
Once your work reaches Swahili supplier emails, Tagalog customer reviews, or Ukrainian research notes, you need more. Lexibird translates text in more than 200 languages, so the same app keeps working as your contacts and markets change.
3. Documents and terminology that stay consistent
Papago handles common office formats and Korean HWP files well. Lexibird's document translation handles the same Office formats and PDF, plus a few Papago doesn't list, such as saved Outlook emails and XLIFF files from localization tools. Send several files at once, up to 40 MB each, and they come back in their original layout. Files are deleted after 24 hours.
For text, glossaries keep your terms in line. Papago's glossary gives priority to registered terms when they match exactly. Lexibird passes your terms to the AI model as context, so a product name stays untranslated and "account" becomes your approved term in a billing email without breaking the grammar around it. If your team already keeps a term sheet, bring it in rather than retyping it, and everyone in the workspace uses the same entries.
4. Translation where you already work
Papago is built for the phone. Lexibird is built for the desk. With the desktop app for macOS or Windows, you copy a line from a Korean chat, press your shortcut, and the translation is waiting without leaving the window you were in. When the Korean is part of an image, such as a button label in an app or a chart in a slide, select that part of the screen and Lexibird reads it for you.
A browser extension covers text on web pages, and a recorded call with a Seoul partner can go straight into audio transcription, so you can translate the transcript right after.
Which one should you choose?
If you mostly need quick Korean translations on your phone while traveling, including offline or face-to-face conversation, Papago fits that job well.
Choose Lexibird if you want:
- Korean business replies that catch what was meant, with another model to try when the first one sounds off
- Room to grow past Papago's language list as your contacts change
- Contracts and decks translated whole, with their layout kept
- Product names and approved terms that stay fixed across the team
- Translation at your desk, one shortcut away from whatever you're working on
Try Lexibird on your next email or document and compare the result for yourself.
