(Image credit: Rik Henderson / Future)

There's been a lot of news around translation recently. We've had apps like Google Translate for years of course, but copying text, opening Google Translate (or similar) and pasting-in words to find out what they mean is incredibly long winded.

Thankfully, artificial intelligence is really changing the game. Apple recently announced a live translate on its latest devices, which will automatically translate messages and calls on iPhone, and Google offers a live translate feature for conversations, text messages and websites on Android devices. Samsung has one too.

But none of the features translate WhatsApp messages.

Now though, WhatsApp is changing all that. The messaging platform has announced via its blog that it's introducing a quick way to translate messages between different languages, directly in the WhatsApp app.

How to translate a message on WhatsApp

If a message comes through on WhatsApp in a different language, you will be able to long press on it and tap on a "Translate" button. You can then select the language you want the message to be translated from or to and download it for future translations.

The translate feature will work across individual chats, as well as Channels and group chats. If you're on Android, you'll be able to turn on automatic translation for an entire chat thread, which will mean all future incoming messages will be translated as they come in. That's not an option for iPhone users on the initial rollout.

However, Apple device owners do get a better selection of languages. The WhatsApp Message Translate feature will launch in over 19 languages on iPhone, while Android users will only get six to begin with – English, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, and Arabic.

The WhatsApp Message Translates feature is rolling out now, so make sure you update WhatsApp to the latest build to benefit.