You can give your agents the power to automatically translate incoming messages from live conversation channels in the Zendesk Agent Workspace, if they so choose. This allows agents to communicate with end users and other agents, even if they are using different languages.
For information about using live conversation translation after it is activated, see Translating conversations in the Zendesk Agent Workspace.
This article includes the following topics:
About live conversation translation
In this section, we’ll discuss the following topics related to live conversation translation:
Understanding live conversation translation
Live conversation translation gives agents the option to automatically translate incoming messages (coming from the end user) and outgoing messages (going to the end user) in the Zendesk Agent Workspace. It works in live conversations from the following channels:
- Live chat
- Social channels
- Sunshine Conversations channel
- Zendesk messaging
Additionally, agents can choose to translate incoming email messages sent by end users and created by the API. The live conversation translation feature in Agent Workspace also supports the translation of incoming comments sent via other channels, such as web forms, web services, messaging Web Widget, Web Widget (Classic), and closed tickets, but it doesn't support any outbound emails sent to end users.
If the agent’s and end user’s languages are different, a translation banner is displayed informing the agent of the language difference, and they can choose to enable translation for that conversation.
Limitations to this feature include:
- There is a 5,000-character limit per message for translation. Any message over 5,000 characters will not be translated.
- SunCo Shorthands are not supported for translations.
- Translations for third-party widgets are not supported.
How conversations are translated
A user’s language is determined based on recent messages they have sent, then Amazon Translate is used to translate text.
The length and number of the messages can affect the language analysis. There's no guaranteed length at which the language will always be detected, but longer messages produce better results.
If the text scan detects that the agent’s and end user’s languages are different, the translation banner is displayed. If the text scan can't detect the language (for example, the message was too short to determine the language), the banner doesn’t appear.
Both the original and translated messages sent by the agent appear in the Event log. End-user messages appear only in the original language.
Languages supported in live conversation translation
The following languages are currently supported in live conversation translation:
| Arabic (ar) | French (fr) | Italian (it) | Simplified Chinese (zh-cn) |
| Bulgarian (bg) | French - Canada (fr-ca) | Japanese (ja) | Spanish (es) |
| Czech (cs) | German (de) | Korean (ko) | Swedish (sv) |
| Danish (da) | Greek (el) | Norwegian (no) | Thai (th) |
| Dutch (nl) | Hebrew (he) | Polish (pl) | Traditional Chinese (zh-tw) |
| English - United Kingdom (en-gb) | Hindi (hi) | Portuguese - Brazil (pt-br) | Turkish (tr) |
| English - United States (en-us) | Hungarian (hu) | Romanian (ro) | Ukrainian (uk) |
| Finnish (fi) | Indonesian (id) | Russian (ru) | Vietnamese (vi) |
The end-user experience
When an agent turns on automatic translation for a live conversation, the end user does not receive an activation notification—agent messages simply appear in their detected language. However, translated agent messages are identified in the conversation.
In a live chat, translated messages have a Show original link, which end users can click to display the untranslated message:
In messaging and Social Messaging conversations, translated messages are identified by the word Translated in their detected language. Unlike live chat conversations, however, they cannot display the untranslated version of the message:
Activating live conversation translation for agents
Account admins can give agents the ability to automatically translate incoming messages, if they choose, by activating the feature in Admin Center.
To activate live conversation translation
- In Admin Center, click
Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Tickets > Settings. - In the Settings tab, locate the Translations section then select Agents can translate conversations.
- Click Save tab.
Agents can now choose to automatically translate incoming messages in the Agent Workspace.
To deactivate live conversation translation
- In Admin Center, click
Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Tickets > Settings.
- In the Settings tab, locate the Translations section then deselect Agents can translate conversations.
- Click Save tab.