Microsoft: Microsoft tests new languages for live captions feature on Windows 11 – Times of India

Microsoft added the live captions feature on Windows 11 in September 2022. Initially, with this feature, the tech giant only provided captions in English and its primary focus was English (United States). Microsoft has now updated its blog post to announce that has started rolling out the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25300 for the members in the Dev Channel. In the blog post, Microsoft also mentioned that the latest preview build will add support for more languages on the live captions feature which is available in Windows 11.
Windows 11 live captions feature: New languages
As per the blog post, with the latest preview build, the live captions feature will gain the ability to offer captions in more languages. These new languages include — “Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish and other English dialects.” Microsoft has also promised to add support for more languages as they become available.
Windows 11 live captions feature: How it works
Windows 11 users can enable the live captions to feature with the “Windows + Ctrl + L” keyboard shortcut. Users can also activate the feature from the quick settings accessibility section. The feature will ask users to download the necessary speech recognition support. However, this will happen when users enable live captions for the first time. Once enabled, the feature will offer on-device captioning.

Users will also be able to download speech recognition support for live captions if it’s not available in the users’ preferred Windows language or if they want support in other languages. For this, users have to visit the Settings menu and select Language & region option from the Time & Language section.
Windows 11 latest preview build: Other features
In the blog post, Microsoft also mentioned that it is testing “different treatments for snap layouts” with Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. The company said, “We are investigating ways to improve the discoverability and usage of the snap layouts such as decreasing the hover time required to invoke the flyout when you mouse over the maximum/restore button in an app’s title bar.”