WhatsApp unfolds the ability for users to translate messages into their preferred language, it is a company announced on Tuesday.
Now, if users see a message in a different language, they can press long and click “translation”. Users can then choose the language they want to translate from or to and download it for future use. WhatsApp notes that messages are available in conversations, groups and channel updates.
Android users have the ability to activate the automatic translation for a whole chat thread to see all future incoming messages in this translated conversation.
The company notes that translations occur on the user’s device, where Whatsapp cannot see them, which means that the messages remain encrypted.
“With more than 3 billion users in more than 180 countries. We always work to keep our users closely linked, no matter where they are in the world,” Whatsapp writes in a blog. “But we understand that sometimes language can be an obstacle to do things or express how you really feel, so we are excited to bring messages to WhatsApp so you can communicate more easily in all languages.”
The movement comes a few months after Apple’s launch in live translation into messages.
Message translations are available to Android and iPhone users starting on Tuesday.
Android users can access translations in six languages: English, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian and Arabic. IPhone users can do it in Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Thai
It is not known when WhatsApp plans to bring messages to the web or Windows and Mac applications.
