(Credit: Google)
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Google Translate may have started out as a glorified digital dictionary, but it’s grown into an increasingly capable interpreter. With the help of AI, it's now ready to serve as a tutor with new live translation and language-lesson features built on the Gemini platform.
The first, as shown off in a preview call for journalists on Monday, seems a considerable step up in usefulness from the “Conversation” mode in the current app. Instead of the app listening to somebody else’s speech and displaying a translation you can then play back as audio, the new “Live Translate” mode does this in near real time, alternating automatically between parties in a conversation to speak each one’s words in the other’s language.
It evokes the live translation mode that Google demoed in Google Meet at its I/O developer conference in May, except that one requires a subscription while this one is free with Translate, at least for now. It will, however, require a connection (which, if you have an unlocked phone, will be cheaper internationally with the right eSIM).
Google says this feature supports more than 70 languages—fewer than the 251 total, including regional and national dialects, that this app supports after a series of linguistic expansions. But it’s first rolling it out only in the US, Mexico, and India. Considering the competition Translate has been facing from AI chatbots, we expect its geographic reach to expand rapidly.
Google vs. Duolingo?
Google’s second news about Translate may enable some users to rely on it less often in conversations with strangers overseas by teaching them other languages in brief, everyday practice lessons.
Google is also taking it slow with this feature, labeling it a beta and initially offering it only for English speakers learning French, Spanish, or French, as well as Portuguese and Spanish speakers learning English.
Google touts these practice drills as personalized to your own scenario. You can type a plain-language description of what you hope to accomplish, such as “ordering like a local in restaurants during my business trip to Spain,” or select broad categories like “Professional conversations,” “Everyday interactions,” and “Travel and transportation.”
The demo I saw on Monday was vocabulary-driven. It invited a user to tap words in Spanish that they recognized in a spoken sentence and then try speaking sentences with hints from the app.
Leaks about this lesson feature emerged in August when Android Authority unearthed it in a new version of the app and gave it a try. Their report included a screenshot of an introductory screen describing the tutorial mode as being in a “trial period” that “gives you early and unlimited access," implying a subscription requirement at some point or for some level of use. But Google isn’t talking about any possible paid modes for this feature yet.
These AI-driven lessons seem short of the broader variety of tutoring available in apps like Duolingo, which already offers free and paid modes. But the developers of that widely used app (who experienced their own anti-AI backlash this year) can't be thrilled at the prospect of Google getting into their language-lesson lane.
The progress of Translate and other apps like it in offering real-time translation in a variety of foreign languages has already led to suggestions that people will find the entire idea of learning other languages obsolete. When a journalist asked about that, Translate product manager Matt Sheets pushed back against the idea of relying on your phone as your protocol droid.
"There’s something really powerful about being able to speak directly with someone else yourself," he said.
Today's updates are available in Translate’s Android and iOS apps.