Exploring WhatsApp’s translation tool: Could this help solve SA’s language divide? – Fast Company

WhatsApp is rolling out a built-in message translation feature that could reshape how South Africans communicate across linguistic divides. According to the official announcement, users can now long-press any incoming message written in a language they don’t understand, tap Translate, and see the text in their preferred language, all without leaving the chat. In parallel, Android users will have the option to enable automatic translation for entire chat threads, meaning future incoming messages in that conversation will be translated as they arrive. For iPhone users, the feature works differently: you can long-press individual messages and choose Translate, but you don’t get the “always-translate” toggle that Android users are receiving. That means every message on iOS has to be translated one at a time, rather than automatically. According to WhatsApp’s press release, the iOS rollout still covers more than 19 languages, so iPhone users arguably get a wider language set, but with less convenience compared to Android. For people who don’t use Android or iPhone (e.g., WhatsApp Web or Desktop), WhatsApp hasn’t announced support for translation yet. At this stage, translations are mobile-only features. Critically, WhatsApp underscores that translations are processed on-device, not via cloud servers. This design keeps messages end-to-end
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