Reddit Expands Machine Learning-Powered Translations to More Than 35 New Locales
Breaking Down Language Barriers for a Global Audience
Reddit is expanding its machine learning-powered translations to more than 35 new locales in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. This move aims to break down language barriers and make the largely English-centric social network accessible to a larger user base.
A History of Translation on Reddit
While this announcement marks a significant expansion of translation capabilities, it is not the first time that Reddit has enabled users to interact with content in multiple languages. The company had previously introduced site-wide translation for French speakers nearly five months ago and allowed individual post translations across several languages. Additionally, users can already stipulate their preferred content language for post recommendations and set their display language, which translates the Reddit interface itself.
The Path Forward
Today’s announcement follows seven months after Reddit went public, and despite continued growth in user base and ad revenue, making all content available in more languages remains a key conduit for attracting a larger user base. The company has recognized this need and is now expanding its translation capabilities to bridge the language gap between users worldwide.
How the New Translation Feature Works
The big selling point of Reddit’s new translation feature lies in its ability to auto-translate posts and corresponding comments from a community’s original language to the user’s own language, according to their Reddit settings. This feature allows for seamless communication within subreddits across different languages without the need for manual translation by users.
To configure this feature, supported locales will see a new translate icon in their menu that lets them view content in their preferred language. Posts translated by Reddit will be labeled as such, and users can choose to view posts in the original language if they wish.
Indexing Content for Search Engines
Similar to its approach with translating posts in French earlier this year, Reddit has announced that the content will be indexed in supported languages for search engines. This means that people Googling for answers in their own tongue will see results from Reddit as well, further expanding the social network’s global reach.
Supported Languages and Future Plans
While Reddit does not outline all the new languages it will support, the translation service is already available in Brazil and Spain as of today. This implies that Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish are now supported, though presumably only in those countries. The company plans to expand AI-powered translations to Germany, Italy, the Philippines, and markets across Latin America ‘in the coming weeks.’
Conclusion
Reddit’s move to expand its machine learning-powered translations is a significant step towards making its platform more inclusive and accessible to users worldwide. By breaking down language barriers and enabling seamless communication between users of different languages, Reddit aims to increase user engagement and grow its global presence.
Author: Paul Sawers, Senior Reporter at TechCrunch
Paul is a senior writer based in London, focused largely (but not exclusively) on the world of UK and European startups. He also writes about other subjects that he’s passionate about, such as the business of open source software.
Prior to joining TechCrunch in June 2022, Paul had gained more than a decade’s experience covering consumer and enterprise technologies for The Next Web (now owned by the Financial Times) and VentureBeat.
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