WHAT IS UP with translations? And why can't the host adjust the participant translation settings?

[KarriGB]

Several months ago I purchased the add-on so that I could get translated captions. Sometimes they work beautifully. Sometimes they SUCK. 

Let me give you an example:

During today's meeting (taking place in French) I had the translated captions on because my native tongue is English. Here is what Zoom translated during the meeting:

Check the box on, pop up coffee. I think. Submit.

Yeah. This is only on summer. A. I put? So say, Yeah, you. Part of it that ensemble, is it there. Papa, how.

Our shen mem. Here the the problem. Benefit the validity on per me. I say, I say, prevail. The 2 vendors at the at the problem. Kuma. Meso, c. The. That? Can you strictly. They were wound of a blockage separate of process to projection. Tradikary Se Possible. Ensemble. Abre. In for power. C. Met. The. Kilogram. Dolly dollar. Like. Bye.

Obviously this is nonsensical. I also had another transcriber running, here is what was said:

Moi j'ai une question, s'il vous plaît.

Par rapport à un écho, puisque on vous a introduit ce qui s'est passé et donc on est intéressé à savoir est ce qu'ils vont revenir ? Est ce que est ce qu'on peut espérer ça ? Désolé de le dire vraiment directement puisque il y a plusieurs attentes des des communautés avec lesquelles on on on, on travaille et et parfois on n'arrive pas à. À trouver les bons mots. Si, si, si, si je m'exprime bien. Parce que parfois on nous demande et on ne sait pas quoi répondre. Et est ce que il y a une lueur de d'espérance ? Que ça ça revienne. Merci.

Which another AI translated to:

I have a question, please.

In relation to ECHO, since you have been told what happened and so we are interested in knowing if they will come back? Can we hope for that? Sorry to say it really directly since there are several expectations of the communities with which we are, we work and and sometimes we can't manage to.

To find the right words. Yes, yes, yes, if I express myself well. Because sometimes we are asked and we don't know what to answer.

And is there a glimmer of hope? Let it come back. Thank you.

Why is Zoom's translation so terrible? At least with the second one I know the general topic we are discussing! I can only assume that part of the problem is that the speaker did not have their settings correct (or Zoom couldn't identify it as French). Why can't I, as host, set their language correctly... just like I would do if they needed to be muted?

For the record, in the same meeting, with one of the other participants, the translation was perfect. 

[stueker]

Dear @KarriGB ,

Gibberish typically happens, when the system has not been configured correctly.
When translation is activated, every participant in the meeting has to set two things:

1. The language that they are speaking themselves "My speaking language"
2. The language that they want the captions to be translated into "My caption language"

Since every participant can set these two settings individually. Different participants can speak in different languages, and for every participant everything will be translated into the language that they select as caption language.

So, in your meeting, my guess would be that the "My speaking language" of a French speaker was set to something other than French. So, the speaker's French speech was first routed to a transcription system that was not French (maybe English). The transcription was then already gibberish and in a second step, translation translated gibberish to more gibberish.

The next time that happens, you can activate the option that shows the original transcript and the translation (in the captions menu). If the transcript in the original language is already gibberish, chances are high that the speaker has set their speaking language to the wrong language.

[KarriGB]

Yep! 100% that the speaker had the wrong settings. Which is why it would be ideal if the host could just go in and adjust this setting for them.  It can be really rude/inappropriate to ask the speaker to stop and mess with thier settings. They also may not be tech savvy enough to manage it.

I love that translated captions now exist in Zoom, I just wish that it was able to auto-detect the language a bit better (or allow for the host to adjust).

[stueker]

Fully understand. Updates to the system are constantly being performed, both, to the core transcription and translation systems as well as the UI.
Stay tuned to updates in the future, that are trying to address this problem.
For AI Companion, the language is already automatically detected. Doing it for live transcription/translation it is a bit more tricky.