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Instant translation coming to Instagram, but only for Afrikaans here

It might be a bit clichéd to say that the world is an online community and everybody should be able to talk to anyone, but the reality is that traditional languages still make that difficult. Many apps have built-in translation for exactly that purpose, and now Instagram has also jumped on that.

The hugely-popular photo editing and sharing app announced late yesterday that in an effort for its users to better understand each other, it will roll out in the coming months a translation service within its application.

“In the coming month, you’ll see a translation button on feed stories and profile bios written in languages different from your own,” it explained in a blog post.

Owned by Facebook, who has for a number of years had their own built-in translation software, it was only a matter of time really before it was rolled out to Instagram.

Captions and comments on posts in Feed, as well as the bio you include on your profile, will be automatically translated automatically based on the language they’re written in and the language settings of the person viewing it.

“If your language is available as a translation, you can tap See Translation below the text to see it,” it explained.

The only supported African language for translation is Afrikaans, but other major languages are included, like French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish. According to the latest stats on social network use in South Africa from World Wide Worx, there are just under three million South Africans who use Instagram. Dotsavvy estimates that there are a similar number or users in Kenya.

“If translations aren’t showing up, it could be because we couldn’t detect or don’t currently support the language. Keep in mind that translations also may not show up for older posts and comments,” Instagram confirmed.

The company recently announced that it has crossed over the 500 million user mark, and it is this growth that prompted it to rollout the translation service.

“The Instagram community has grown faster and become more global than we ever imagined. And we’re excited that you’ll soon be able to understand the full story of a moment, no matter what language you speak,” it said.

[Image – CC 2.0 by Jonathan Grado]

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