Google Meet just got much better captions
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Google Meet has its real-time translated captioning feature from the video conferencing software to include some additional and popular languages.
Announcing the expansion in a after (opens in new tab) on the Google Workspace updates blog, the company said that English conversations can now be translated into Japanese, Simplified Mandarin and Swedish. French, German, Portuguese and Spanish conversations can now be translated into English.
First announced (opens in new tab) and released in beta in January 2022, the real-time translation feature seems to take on the responsibility of making meetings as accessible as possible for attendees by “removing language barriers” from companies, and simply making it a fact.
Google’s translated subtitles feature
Google Meet’s real-time translation feature is an admirable attempt to connect people around the world, but Google seems to be planning to keep it limited to the business world.
It’s only available in meetings hosted by users with a specific set of account types, all under the Google Workplace banner. These include Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade.
it’s unclear whether Google Workspace Individual customers or personal Google accounts will have access to translated closed captioning in the future, or why the feature has been limited so far.
Previously, the feature was already able to translate English meetings into French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, and was available on both the web and mobile devices.
Google also announced that “standard” closed captioning is now available in Japanese, Russian, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, and Traditional Mandarin for all Google Workspace users. Again, Google Workspace Individual and personal users are not considered.
IT admins who want to take advantage of both features need do nothing other than make sure their company has an eligible Workspace account.