WhatsApp can now translate messages in chats

Meta has announced that WhatsApp Messenger can now translate messages in chats. This is done on the device.
Translation works for personal chats, groups, and Channel updates. To use it on iOS, you will need to press and hold on a message, and tap on More > Translate. Select the language you want the message to be translated to or from. This will offer to download the select language. You can manage the installed languages from the Settings > Translate > Downloaded languages.
Android users will need to press and hold on a message, then tap on the three-dot menu at the top, and then choose to download the language. Tap on translate to view the translated version of the text. If you want to view the original text, tap on the three-dot menu and select remove translation. Android users can use the view translation option to automatically translate an entire chat, which will also translate future incoming messages in the thread.
Note: WhatsApp’s message translate feature only works for chats, i.e. text messages. It cannot translate documents, stickers, GIFs, contacts, etc.
WhatsApp on Android can translate six languages: English, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, and Arabic. WhatsApp on iOS supports translation between 20 languages, including:

Arabic
Dutch
English (United Kingdom)
English (United States)
French (France)
German (Germany)
Hindi
Indonesian
Italian (Italy)
Japanese
Korean
Mandarin Chinese (China)
Mandarin Chinese (Taiwan)
Polish
Portuguese (Brazil)
Russian
Spanish (Spain)
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese

While that is impressive, WhatsApp’s iOS app relies on Apple’s system-wide language translation support on iOS. The announcement says that the message translations will be processed on-device, to protect the privacy of users. It downloads the language pack, uses traditional translation methods instead of AI, at least that’s how it seems to me.

WhatsApp is gradually rolling out the message translation feature to users, so you may not have access to it immediately. It wasn’t available on my iPhone, but a couple of friends of mine were able to test it.
This is a pretty good feature, it could come in handy if you’ve just moved to a new Country, or if your new friend doesn’t speak your language.
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