Google Traduttore updates and adds the ability to instantly translate voices for Italian users as well. Here's how it works
English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai and, now, Italian: Google Traduttore can finally do automatic and real-time translation in our language too. A very convenient feature, both for tourism and for business meetings and conventions.
Automatic translation of speech picked up by the microphone is not new in the Google Translator app, as it has been released in the different languages since January 2020. Transcription, on the other hand, has been available since March. But Italian is only just arriving. Like many features of Google's apps, though, translation and transcription is still imperfect and being refined. It works reasonably well in quiet environments without a lot of background noise and if you're talking one at a time. With a lot of people talking at once, or a lot of noise in the room, Google Translator's effectiveness drops quite a bit. It's only a matter of time, though: as Google Translate is used by more and more people, Google will acquire more and more data to process and will be able to refine the system.
Simultaneous Transcription with Google Translator: how to do it
Real-time speech transcription is available on the latest version of the Google Translator app for Android. After opening the app we'll find the "Transcribe" icon on the main screen and, by tapping on it, we can select the source language and the translation language. The app will start transcribing the speech in the foreign language and translating it in real time. You'll be able to pause the translation, restart it, review the transcription, change the font size of the translated text, and even use the app with a dark theme to improve readability in dimly lit places.
More languages coming soon
Google continues to develop the Translator app and says, in a post on its official blog, that it will make more languages available and will continue to refine the app so that it becomes more effective even in noisy environments. With this update, for example, only Italian has been added, but still the app doesn't work very well: even if it has to translate from English, it often tells us "Cannot understand audio".