Just like any other request, to start, all you have to do is tell Alexa to translate what’s coming next. Alexa is then able to automatically identify each spoken language and translate it onscreen for each speaker.

This feature, simply called “Live Translation”, actually combines several advanced technologies, such as Automatic Speech Recognition, the Amazon Translate translation service and Alexa’s text-to-speech solution. At the moment, it supports six languages in addition to English: German, Spanish, French, Hindi, Italian and Portuguese.

Simultaneous translation is a major challenge today. Earlier this year, Google introduced a brand-new feature in its Translation mobile application that transcribes spoken words into translated, written text in real time. In addition, real-time translation is now available on all headsets equipped with Google Assistant.