New language practice feature in ‘Google Translate’ app to compete with ‘Duolingo’

As announced on Tuesday, (Google Translate) is also gaining new live capabilities to make it easier to communicate in real time with a person speaking a different language.

With this new language practice feature, Google is taking on Duolingo, a popular language learning app that uses a game-based approach to help users practice more than 40 languages.

To access the feature, you’ll select the “practice” option in the Google Translate app. From there, you can set skill level and goals. Google Translate then generates customized scenarios where you can either listen to conversations and tap the words you hear to build comprehension, or you can practice speaking. The exercises track users’ daily progress, Google says.

The beta experience is rolling out in the Google Translate app for Android and iOS starting Tuesday. The feature is available first for English speakers practicing Spanish and French, as well as for Spanish, French, and Portuguese speakers practicing English.

Google is also introducing the ability for users to have back-and-forth conversations with audio and on-screen translations through the Translate app.

“Building on our existing live conversation experience, our advanced AI models are now making it even easier to have a live conversation in more than 70 languages – including Arabic, French, Hindi, Korean, Spanish, and Tamil,” Google wrote in a blog post.

You can tap the “Live translate” option in the Translate app and then select the language you want to translate by simply speaking. You’ll then hear the translation aloud alongside a transcript of your conversation in both languages. The app will translate and switch between the two languages that you and the other person are speaking.

These live translation capabilities are available starting Tuesday for users in the U.S., India, and Mexico.