Live translation in a Zoom call.

The four ways to follow a Zoom call in your language

The Zoom features answer different needs. Translated captions are automatic and need no scheduling, but the host's account has to be on a higher plan or carry a paid add-on. Voice Translator is newer and covers few languages so far. Interpretation is available on more plans and the quality is human, but you have to find and book people first.

How to turn on translated captions in Zoom

1. Check the plan

   Zoom's support article says the host's account has to be Zoom Workplace Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Plus or Enterprise Premier, or be assigned the Zoom Translated Captions add-on, and it sends you to sales for a price. At the time of checking, Zoom's pricing page sells a Live Translation add-on that includes translated captions for $5 per user a month, or $50 a year, in US dollars. Zoom also notes that some accounts in regulated fields such as healthcare and higher education may not have access at all.

2. Switch on automated captions

   In the Zoom web portal, open Settings, then Meeting, then In Meeting (Advanced). Admins get there through Admin Center, a single user through My account. Translated captions cannot be switched on until Automated captions are, and Zoom says those are on by default for paid accounts. An admin sets this for the whole account or a group of users, and a single user can do it for their own account unless an admin has locked the setting.

3. Turn on translated captions and choose the pairs

   In the same section, switch on Translated captions, then click Edit translation languages. A pair is one spoken language plus one caption language. Every supported pair is on by default. Anything the host leaves off is not offered during the meeting.

4. Turn captions on in the meeting

   In the call, click Show Captions in the toolbar, or More and then Captions. Click the arrow beside it, switch on Translation, pick your language and click Save. Zoom says each participant can do this without the host and choose a different language. If the host's account reserves captions for the host, Zoom lets you send the host a request instead. Zoom treats speech as English by default, so someone speaking another language should set their caption language in the same menu first. It works in the Zoom desktop app on Windows and macOS and in the Zoom web app.

Voice Translator, when you would rather listen

• Zoom's release notes list Voice Translator as generally available since July 2026. It turns the translated captions into a synthetic voice, so you hear the speaker in your language.
• Zoom's documentation says it needs a Basic, Pro, Business or Enterprise account with the Live Translation add-on or ZoomMate, Zoom's AI assistant, and an account owner or admin has to enable it in the web settings.
• It runs on credits. Zoom's purchase page says the add-on includes 100 minutes a month and that more credits cost extra.
• Five languages at the time of checking: English, Chinese, French, Japanese and Spanish. Zoom's release notes list Arabic, German, Italian and Portuguese for the release of September 21, 2026.
• It works only in the Zoom desktop app for Windows and macOS, version 7.0.0 or later. Each listener turns it on under More, then Voice Translator.

Language interpretation, when you want a person

• Zoom's documentation says the feature needs a Pro, Business, Education or Enterprise account.
• It has to be set up on a scheduled meeting with an automatically generated meeting ID. Zoom says it cannot be added to an instant meeting or to one that uses a Personal Meeting ID, and it does not work in breakout rooms.
• The host names the interpreters when scheduling and can add or remove them in the meeting, from the desktop app. Zoom's two support articles disagree on the cap: one says 20 interpreters, the other, updated in September 2026, says 200.
• Each interpreter gets their own audio channel. Listeners pick a channel and can either mute the original audio or keep it quietly underneath.
• Nine languages are listed by default: English, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish and Korean. You can add more, but a single meeting is capped at 5 custom languages unless you ask Zoom Support to raise it to 25.

This is the right choice for a conference, a board meeting or anything with legal weight, where one wrong word costs something. It also means booking people, so it is not what you arrange for a call starting in ten minutes.

When you are the guest and nothing is enabled

1. Start Fraze beside Zoom

   Choose system audio so it hears the call, whether Zoom is the desktop app or a tab in your browser. On a Mac you can point it at Zoom on its own instead.

2. Pick the spoken language and yours

   Fraze transcribes 25 European languages, and more on macOS 26 and later, including Japanese, Korean and Chinese. It translates about 50 languages to or from English, and other pairs go through English.

3. Read along

   Lines land about half a second to a second after a speaker pauses. A small caption window can float over Zoom, showing the original, the translation or both. Transcripts stay on your computer and can be exported or copied.

Most of the time the problem is not a missing checkbox. It is that the meeting is not yours. You joined a client's call or a supplier's webinar, the host is on a plan without translated captions, and asking them to buy an add-on before Thursday is not realistic.

Fraze works from the other end. It listens to the sound your own computer is playing, so a Zoom call is just audio like any other. Speech recognition and translation both run on your machine, so no audio and no text is uploaded, and after the first download of language files it keeps working with Wi-Fi off.

What Fraze will not do, and when Zoom is the better pick

• Fraze translates what you hear, for you, as text. It does not read the translation aloud, it does not put captions on anyone else's screen and it does not translate your voice for them.
• If everyone in the meeting needs to read a translation, Zoom's translated captions are the tool for that, and the plan or the add-on is worth it.
• If the meeting is high stakes, book interpreters. Machine translation of live speech gets things wrong, and Zoom says the same about its own captions.
• If you need a summary afterwards, a link to share or a language Fraze does not cover, look at Verli at verli.app, the cloud version from the same company. It runs in a browser and does more, but the audio goes to a server.

In some places you have to tell people before you transcribe a conversation. Check what applies where you are.

Every Fraze account gets the first 30 minutes free, with no card. After that it is $29.99 once or $2.99 a month, both unlimited, because the work happens on your computer and there is no per-minute meter.

Questions