Support for live captions in French, German, Portuguese and Spanish languages for Google Meet users in North America was expected to arrive in early 2021.

But as of this writing, it seems as though the feature is still missing for Meet users in the U.S. and Canada, yet Q2 2021 is almost here.

For those coming from a cave, Google made an announcement last December that added support for four non-English languages to the Meet live captions feature.

Google-Meet-live-captions
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Prior to this update, real-time audio-to-text conversion in Google Meet was limited to English, but after the said update, support for French, German, Portuguese and Spanish was added.

In the announcement post, the search giant noted that the feature would first be made available to users in the APAC and EMEA regions, with folks in North and Latin America to follow in early 2021.

Google also noted that Meet users on iOS and Android will bag this feature in early 2021 alongside their desktop (web) counterparts.

Non-English captions are currently available on the web to APAC and EMEA countries only, with rollout to North America and Latin America coming in early 2021. Additionally we’ll also expand support to iOS and Android mobile apps in early 2021.
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Well, it’s only a day before Q2 arrives yet reports doing rounds in the forums suggest support for Google Meet live captions in non-English languages is still unavailable in North America.

Google-Meet-non-English-captions
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I am in Canada and would like to change the captions to French. It and English are our country’s two official languages. Do you know if the French option will be coming to Canada? Thanks
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Starting at December, there is an announcement that will be four new languages. But clicking more, then turn on captions, and I only have the option “English”. Is the languages for those live caption requires eligibility?
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I would like to know if French captions are available with Google Meet in Canada. I read that it is possible to use those in Asia and Africa. Would it be easy to transfer the technology to Canada ? Thank you. Marco Porlier.
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For some reason, it looks like live captions support in non-English languages is still missing in Canada or North America for that matter. When exactly support will arrive remains unknown.

In fact, when asked about its availability in North America, a product expert in the Google Meet forums says “hopefully soon!”, which is obviously not good enough but all we get for now.

I don’t know when the other caption languages will be available in North America. Hopefully soon!
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Having made a promise to avail the feature in early 2021, Google should have been prompt with any communication in the event of a delay in the rollout, but nothing so far from the search giant.

But as always, we will have our eyes on the matter and let you know if and when we get updates from Google, so stay tuned to PiunikaWeb.

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.

Hillary Keverenge
2110 Posts

Tech has been my playground for over a decade. While the Android journey began early, it truly took flight with the revolutionary Lollipop update. Since then, it's been a parade of Android devices (with a sprinkle of iOS), culminating in a mostly happy marriage with Google's smart home ecosystem. Expect insightful articles and explorations of the ever-evolving world of Android and Google products coupled with occasional rants on the Nest smart home ecosystem.

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