As part of Zoom’s mission to connect the world, and in particular, people around the globe, they provide people with a way to communicate with each other. Oftentimes, however, these people do not speak the same language, so they have a difficult time communicating. Introducing translated captions, a new Zoom add-on that removes language barriers, helps people connect, as well as promotes inclusivity to your meetings and webinars by removing language barriers.

In order to foster a more inclusive environment during every meeting and webinar, you will be able to use the translated captions feature to reduce the requirement for interpreters and third-party integrations. Whether you run a large multinational company with employees speaking multiple languages or you run a global university with students from around the world, translating captions helps you bridge the language gap between your employees and students.

The Zoom One in-house caption service will now include translated captions as part of its Business Plus and Zoom One Enterprise Plus plans that will be released in June 2023. In an increasingly connected and global world, this type of functionality can facilitate the effective collaboration of more and more people and remove one of the biggest obstacles to effective collaboration.

As an add-on for Zoom accounts, the feature allows participants to translate their source language into English captions in meetings and webinars that are hosted in our Zoom Events solution as well as translate English captions into their preferred language when they are in a Zoom meeting or webinar.

There are currently 12 languages for which we provide caption translation:

• Chinese Mandarin – Simplified (beta)

• Dutch

• English

• French

• German

• Italian

• Japanese (beta)

• Korean (beta)

• Portuguese

• Russian

• Spanish

• Ukrainian

The translation of captions will be included in the full transcript of a recorded meeting or webinar, but not on the recording itself, if the meeting has been recorded.

As well as this, we are continuously trying to improve our captioning capabilities so that your meetings can be even more inclusive by advancing them. We plan to carry out the following tasks over the next few months:

• It is now possible to translate captions in more than twice as many languages as before

• The captions can be translated to and from other languages than English, for instance from French to German and vice versa – for instance, the captions can be translated from English to German and vice versa

Who can access translated captions?

For just $5/month per user, you can add this translation capability to any paid Zoom license if you wish to take advantage of the translation capability. The captions that are translated follow the settings that are configured by the host. When a host enables the use of translated captions in his or her meeting or webinar, all attendees and participants can take advantage of them during the event.

There is no requirement for a paid license to be purchased to use translated captions within a paid account (including Basic), but any license type within that account can make use of this feature.

How to enable translated captions

Translated captions can be enabled easily within the Zoom website portal, where users will be able to turn on the translation feature and select their preferred language preferences. To ensure you have the most up-to-date Zoom features you can also download the latest Zoom desktop client from our website.

The caption language can be selected directly during the meeting, once the captioning has been enabled and the languages have been set. At the bottom of the screen there will be a translated caption which can be hidden at any time at your discretion.

You can view the full transcript of a meeting in Zoom’s web portal if Full Transcript is enabled. Next to it, in the Show Captions menu, select View Full Transcript if you wish to view the captions in their full context. If you select the transcript on the right side of the interface, you will have the option to view the full transcript of the recording by selecting the option under the transcript box. There is even a name next to each caption that you can see in order to make identifying the speaker more easy.

Note:

It is important that you select the correct language for your translation during your meeting or webinar if you are using Translated Captions, so that it matches the language in which you are speaking during the meeting or webinar. Using the Show Captions menu, you can select Speaking Language from the list of languages that can be displayed. This will help to ensure that the captions and translations are provided to other participants and attendees in a timely manner.

Get translated captions today 

The goal of our dedicated team is to continue developing the translated captioning feature so that it is able to benefit organizations wherever they are located, fostering a culture of understanding, helping to promote equity among hybrid teams, and ensuring that everyone has an equal voice to speak.

You can get started using translated captions right away by contacting your Zoom account representative or by filling out the contact Zoom Sales form, which you can find at the bottom of this page.

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