Days after launching an in-house recorder app with real-time transcribe, Google is bringing the feature to its widely used Translate app for Android. This means Google Translate can now transcribe speech in real-time on an Android smartphone. This would allow users to get live translations of conversations in foreign languages in a written form with the Google Translate app transcribing everything as they speak/listen.
Currently, Google Translate can transcribe speech in real-time in 8 languages including English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai. Google plans to support more languages in the days to come. The feature, it says, is now rolling out to all Android users through a new Google Translate software update. As is usually the case with such updates, not every Android device would get it at the same time, but Google assures a full rollout in the next few days. So make sure to update your Google Translate app for Android from the Play Store.
Once the update is live and running, using the real-time transcribe feature is pretty straightforward. Once inside the app, you’ll need to tap on the dedicated ‘transcribe’ icon on the app’s home screen. You can then manually select the source and target languages, as you would while normally using the Google Translate app. There will be a provision to pause or restart the transcribe as and when required, and you’ll also be able to see the original transcript should you want that.
Live transcribing seem to be Google’s next frontier when it comes to AI and speech recognition. The Mountain View company had initially launched an in-house recorder app alongside its Pixel 4 phones last year. One of its headlining features was live transcribe that allowed users to get real-time transcribes of speech while also recording it, something that made a lot of sense for journalists. Initially launched as a Pixel 4 exclusive, Google’s recorder app with live transcribe feature is now available for all on the Play Store. Bringing live transcribe to Google Translate is a gradual extension of that, something that was also briefly teased earlier in the year.
