Google Translate has learned 110 new languages with the help of AI

Google Translate has gotten much faster when it comes to learning new languages, and it’s thanks to generative AI.

On Thursday, Google announced its Translate tool now knows 110 new languages, thanks to the company’s PaLM 2 large language model.

For the full list of new languages that are supported, check out Google’s help page Highlights include Cantonese, which Google says was one of the most requested languages for Translate, as well as Balinese, Fijian, Portuguese (Portugal), Tahitian, and Tibetan.

Google also pointed out that this is the largest expansion of Translate into African languages to date, as it includes Fon, Kikongo, Luo, Ga, Swati, Venda and Wolof.

All in all, Google plans to ultimately support 1,000 most spoken languages around the world, which now seems attainable thanks to AI. Google says that PaLM 2 was “a key piece to the puzzle, helping Translate more efficiently learn languages that are closely related to each other.”

For an idea of just how much faster Google Translate is at learning new languages, the company last posted an update like this in May 2022, when Translate learned 24 new languages, also with the help of AI. All in all, it took the company roughly 16 years to get to 133 languages.