WhatsApp adds built-in text translations on iPhone and Android

A new translation feature for WhatsApp on iPhone and Android that translates messages into your preferred language is rolling out “gradually,” starting today in 1:1 chats, groups, and Channel update messages. It can be activated by long-pressing down on messages and tapping the “Translate” option to choose the language you want the message to be translated from or to.

Support for English, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, and Arabic will initially be available for Android users, while iPhone users can translate messages into more than 19 languages at launch. Android users can also enable automatic translation for entire chat threads to apply the feature to all incoming messages.

It’s no real-time translation in your ears, in front of your eyes, or on your screen, and other messaging apps have also offered similar features (Google used WhatsApp to demonstrate “Tap to translate” on Android nearly a decade ago). But for WhatsApp’s billions of users, it could make conversations easier as they move throughout the world. WhatsApp says it plans to expand translation support for additional languages in the future.