Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google is testing a new lyrics translation tool for YouTube Music.
- Users can change the output language by using app language settings.
- Access appears to be restricted to Premium subscribers.
A good song is something we can universally appreciate, even if it’s in a language don’t understand. But if you’ve ever been curious what’s really going in those Bad Bunny songs, or what all those K-pop idols are singing about, YouTube Music looks like it’s working on a new translation tool that should be right up your alley.
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YouTube Music lyrics make it easy to follow along to your favorite songs, but so far when they’ve been available, we’ve only had them in the song’s native language.
This still appears to be a very limited test, but YouTube Music user Diego on Telegram has spotted a new “Translate” option appearing in the app’s lyrics view. Selecting it generates a machine translation of the provided lyrics, appearing beneath the original lines.
With the way this is working right now, you don’t have the option to choose the output in the app itself. It will follow whatever language your system is set to by default, but you can always change the app language for YouTube Music in specific to override that to the language you want.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like everyone will be getting access to this, as Reddit user AlonsoDelJunco shares the pop-up they saw announcing this feature that confirms it’s restricted to Premium subscribers. That’s not exactly surprising, but for a feature that feels like it could be argued falls under the “accessibility” umbrella, it might have been nice for Google to make this more widely available.
That said, this still appears to just be a limited test (we’re not seeing it on our own devices), so perhaps Google still has some time to reconsider that part of its approach.
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