Microsoft Teams meetings support the use of language interpretation which allows an interpreter to interpret during a meeting. You can enable the language interpretation feature and assign an interpreter to your meeting by following the guide below. There are two methods in adding an interpreter, you may select an interpreter ahead of the meeting, but you can also designate an interpreter during the meeting.
Adding an Interpreter During Teams Meeting Creation
1. Create a Teams Meeting in Teams by selecting Calendar in the side menu and select "New meeting" in the top right corner.
2. Create you meeting like you normally would, however make sure you add the interpreter as an attendee. As we'll see later, you may select any attendee to the meeting as the interpreter.
3. On the right side of the New meeting window, there is a button for "More options," go ahead and select this.
4. In the window that appears, scroll down to the bottom and look for the option "Enable language interpretation." Click the toggle button on the right side to enable this feature for the meeting.
5. If you have added attendees to the meeting and enabled the language interpretation setting, you will be given a drop down of all attendees and you may select one to designate as the interpreter and following options for the Source and Target language. You may add as many interpreters as you want to a specific interpretation.
6. Set "Source language" to the language used by the presenter and the "Target language" to the desired interpreted language. The "Add more interpreters" is available in the event that additional interpreted languages are desired for a meeting. You may add additional interpreters for a particular interpretation by selecting multiple attendees.
7. You now have selected your interpreter. During the meeting the selected participant will be able to hear the original audio from speakers in the Teams Meeting but those who opt-in to an available language channel, will be able to hear hear the presenter at a lower volume alongside the interpreter translating at full volume until they stop talking.
8. If the option goes away or users want to swap language channels they can change it under "More actions" and then "Language Interpretation."
Adding Language Interpretation to Teams Meeting via Outlook
When creating the Teams meeting using Outlook instead the process is similar to that of creating the meeting through Teams.
1. On Outlook create a meeting like you normally would. Don't forget to press the "Teams Meeting" icon in the top ribbon to make the meeting a Teams Meeting.
2. Once the Teams meeting details populate in the description, there should now be a "Meeting Options" button on the top ribbon next to "Join Teams Meeting." Note this location for later.
3. Add your Required and Optional attendees to the meeting and adjust time, date, and all other details and hit send once you're ready.
4. Immediately after you send the meeting you can double click the meeting in your calendar to go back to that meeting invitation screen. Now go ahead and select Meeting Options on the top ribbon.
5. An external window will appear, scroll down to the bottom and there should be a check box for "Enable Language Interpretation." Similar to the steps above once checked you will be given the option to select interpreters from the attendee list and what the Source and Target language will be.
Note: Unlike Teams you have to send the email invitation to attendees before they will appear in the interpreters drop down box.
6. Don't forget to press save at the bottom once you've configured Language Interpretation.
7. During the meeting the selected participant will be able to hear the original audio from speakers in the Teams Meeting but those who opt-in to an available language channel, these users will only hear audio from the interpreter.
Adding an Interpreter During a Teams Meeting
You can additionally make an interpreter during a meeting or add additional interpreters following the steps below. Note: The meeting must have Language Interpretation already enabled for this to work.
1. In the participants list for the meeting, find the person you would want to make an interpreter.
2. Right click their name and then select "Make an Interpreter"