The FaceTime, Messages, and Phone apps offer real-time, two-way translation—as long as you and the person on the other side of the conversation are using languages your operating system knows about. And all translation occurs on your device, with nothing sent to Apple’s servers.
The other party or parties don’t need an Apple Intelligence-equipped device, but certain translation features will be limited, as described in the sections below.
Live Translation supports English (UK and U.S.), Chinese (Mandarin, simplified), Chinese (Mandarin, traditional), French (France), German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (Spain) for FaceTime, Messages, and Phone; Messages also supports Swedish, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Presumably, more languages will be added over time. In Messages, since you’re communicating in text, Chinese (simplified) and Chinese (traditional) apply to multiple forms of Chinese.
Live Translation works quite similarly in FaceTime and Phone, so we tackle those together, then explain how to use it with Messages.
Live Translation in FaceTime and Phone
Live Translation of audio calls may be one of the most remarkable new features in FaceTime and Phone. With Live Translation enabled, two people speaking in different supported languages can hear and read real-time translations of what the other is saying in a language they don’t understand or know well.
Live Translation appeared as a beta in iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26. Apple removed the beta label in version 27.
Here’s how to enable Live Translation on a call, including a call using the Phone app:
- After starting a FaceTime audio or video call or a regular phone call in Phone, make sure you are in full-screen mode on an iPad or iPhone—that’s the only place you can select Live Translation. On a Mac, FaceTime or Phone resizes as needed.
- Tap or click the More button and choose Live Translation.
- The Live Translation dialog preselects the From language as the most recent used (if any), and uses your device’s language of choice for the To option. You can use the popup menus to change these.
- Your device must download a translation library the first time you use a language. After selecting the options from From or To, wait until the Downloading Language message changes before proceeding.
- Tap or click Start Translation.
Either party can enable Live Translation and gain the benefit. The translation is spoken on the conversation so both parties can hear it.
You can disable Live Translation by tapping the Translating Language menu and choosing Stop Translation, or tapping the More button and tapping Stop to the right of the Live Translation menu item.
Live Translation in Messages
For quite a while, you could touch and hold a message (iPhone/iPad) or select its text (Mac) and choose Translate. This option remains available. Now, Live Translation can also translate an entire conversation in real time inline in Messages.
With Live Translation enabled, when you touch and hold a message on an iPhone or iPad, you’re prompted to choose between Translate This Message and Translate Conversation. Choosing Translate This Message opens a translation panel.
To enable Live Translation, either touch and hold a message on an iPhone or iPad and choose Translate Conversation, or on any device, tap or click the avatar at the top of the conversation and enable Automatically Translate. Pick the language to translate from the pop-up menu. A download icon appears next to any language that hasn’t yet had its translation library downloaded to your device.
Choose Manage Languages to load translation libraries you might need now or in the future. You can also remove downloaded libraries.
You can then choose a language for Translate To if the one shown isn’t your preferred language. By default, both the original text and the translated version appear for each translated message.
As you converse, messages are translated as they’re received. You can use the pop-up menu above the message field to choose just your chosen Translate To language or to stop translation. You can also use the conversation info pane, where you can choose Off from the Automatically Translate pop-up menu.
Even better, you can enable translation on one side and it works on both. One side supports Apple Intelligence and has Live Translation enabled. The other is on an iPhone 11 model and cannot turn that feature on—they still get the benefit.
