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(Pocket-lint) – Amazon Alexa has received a new “Live Translation” feature. Specifically, the wizard can now perform real-time translations between English and Spanish, German, French, Hindi, Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese, all thanks to a new wireless software update.
“Amazon [has] launched the new Alexa live translation feature, which allows people who speak two different languages to converse with each other, with Alexa acting as an interpreter and translating both sides of the conversation, “Amazon announced in a post.” Once the session has started, clients can speak phrases or sentences in any language. Alexa will automatically identify which language is being spoken and translate each side of the conversation.
Note that the latest Alexa update follows the introduction of multilingual skills in November. These skills make the assistant more accessible to non-English speakers. Expanding on that, with Live Translation, activated with a voice command like “Alexa, translate Spanish,” Alexa can prompt you to start speaking with a beep and then translate your conversations. It will even display a transcript on Echo Show devices. To end a translation session, say “Alexa, stop.”
We can see that this feature is extremely useful when talking to someone who speaks another language. If you were wondering why you thought Alexa could already do this, you’re probably thinking of the Google Assistant’s interpreter mode, which debuted in 2019 with the ability to handle 27 different languages. Google also offers the ability to show a live transcript, but on its own devices like the Nest Hub, rather than Amazon Echo Show devices, of course.
We haven’t had a chance to test Alexa Live Translation, so we can’t judge which one is better yet, but if you want to give it a try, it’s now available on Echo devices in the US.
Written by Maggie Tillman.
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