Reddit is rolling out machine learning-powered translation to more than 35 new regions across Europe, Asia and Latin America as it aims to open up the primarily English-language social network to more users.
The service launches about five months after Reddit first introduced site-wide translations for French speakers, though the company has previously allowed users to translate individual posts into multiple languages. It also comes seven months after Reddit went public, and while the company says its user base and advertising revenue continue to grow, the most obvious way to attract more users is to make content available in more languages.
The big selling point of Reddit's new translation feature is that users can set it to automatically translate both posts and corresponding comments from the community's original language into the user's own language, according to Reddit's settings. This means that a conversation may flow between two different languages in a given subreddit, and users no longer have to manually translate every response. They can post in any language they like, and it will be automatically translated into the community's pre-set language, as long as Reddit supports it.
To do this, users in supported locales will see a new translation icon in their menu, allowing them to view content in their preferred language.
Posts that have been translated by Reddit are labeled as such, and users can choose to view the post in the original language if they prefer.
Reddit translation in action Image credit: Reddit
Reddit has announced that content will be indexed in languages supported by search engines, similar to when it translated French posts earlier this year, meaning users who search Google for answers to questions in their own language will also be able to see Reddit results.
Reddit didn't reveal all of the new languages that will be supported, but since the translation service is already available in Brazil and Spain as of today, we can assume that Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish are now supported — though they'll probably only be supported in those countries.
Reddit added that it plans to expand AI-powered translation to markets in Germany, Italy, the Philippines and across Latin America in the coming weeks.