What you need to know
- Microsoft Teams meeting attendees can now have an interpreter in their preferred language.
- The feature has been in testing for quite some time but is now generally available.
- Meeting participants can set their preferred language and then listen to a meeting in that language.
Microsoft Teams meetings can now have interpreters communicate with attendees during meetings. Language interpretation is now generally available for Microsoft Teams. The feature allows meeting organizers to have professional interpreters translate meetings in real time. Attendees can set their preferred language when they join a meeting and should hear the interpreter's translation at a louder volume than the speaker.
Microsoft outlines the key features of language interpretation in a Tech Community post:
- Listen to a meeting in the language they are most comfortable using.
- Collaborate in meetings where multiple languages are spoken.
- Support inclusivity in meetings by making spoken content more accessible to all participants.
Language interpretation joins a growing list of Teams features aimed at overcoming language barriers. For example, Teams also supports translating typed messages.
"Here at Microsoft, we serve a diverse set of global customers, including governmental institutions that hold parliament meetings in multiple languages, multinational and multilingual corporations, businesses that work with vendors around the world, and many more," said Microsoft's Shalendra Chhabra. "This feature was built to support customers and users who need to communicate in the virtual world across languages."
A Microsoft support document breaks down how to organize a meeting with language interpretation, how to add interpreters, how to choose a language, and how to designate someone as an interpreter.
Meeting organizers have to provide their own interpreters. Up to 16 interpreter pairs can be added to any given meeting. The feature works in scheduled meetings, channel meetings, meetings with up to 1,000 people, and webinars.
Interpreters have to join meetings from Teams for desktop or the web.
