14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has long been committed to improving the accessibility side of its operating system, and the debut of Windows 11 pushed these efforts to a new level.
Live captions, for example, as one of the most useful accessibility features in the OS, as it allows users with hearing problems to just read captions in their own language.
Needless to say, one of the essential requirements of this feature is to actually support the language that users know, so expanding live captions in this regard has become a priority for Microsoft.
The most recent Windows 11 preview build, which is now live for insiders in the Dev channel, adds new languages to the live captions integration, including Chinese, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and others.
More languages on the way
Microsoft promises to continue the work on this front, especially as Windows 11 2022 Update, the version of the operating system that brought live captions to the world, is getting closer to the broad availability phase.
“Live captions helps everyone and people who are deaf or hard of hearing read live captions in their native language. The first release of live captions in the Windows 11 2022 Update provided captions in English, with a focus on English (United States). In this build, live captions gains the ability to also provide captions in Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish and other English dialects. We will add more languages as they become available,” Microsoft says.
Needless to say, an important part of the evolution of live captions in Windows 11 is the feedback the company receives. The software giant recommends users to reach out to the company to require more languages, so most likely, the ones with the most requests will end up making their way to Windows 11 sooner rather than later.