Samsung launched the Pixel Buds3 FE on September 4, and for all the buzz about its incorporation of Google’s ChatGPT competitor, Gemini, there’s been relatively little said about the Buds3 FE’s real-time, live foreign language translation.

Whereas once communicating beyond your spoken tongues was an exercise in much frustration, even more patience, and a dog-eared copy of a Lonely Planet phrasebook, now you can just use the same earbuds you use for listening to music and podcasts. Here’s how.

how to enable live-translation

This would’ve come in handy so many times for me. Samsung’s Galaxy Buds3 family of devices (which includes the new Buds3 FE) aren’t the first earbuds to feature real-time audio translation. It’s a feature that all the big names are reaching for and wedging into their earbuds as quickly as they can roll out integrated AI.

I’ve got high hopes for it, higher than years of using Google Translate to middling, uneven effect. I’ve had better luck purchasing tanks of gasoline and plates of food with hand signals and very broken Vietnamese/Czech/Arabic than I have with Google Translate or—ugh—phrasebooks.

Samsung tells you to access the Interpreter app on your phone, which should be connected to your Buds3 FE earbuds. You may end up looking in vain on the app store for an app by that name to download.

It’s actually not a downloadable app. It’s built into Galaxy devices’ quick settings panel. Search through your device’s settings to find Interpreter. Open it. Go to the listening mode, click the microphone, and select the languages to prime your Buds3 FEs to start listening.

Now just talk. The voice of the person you’re speaking to will be automatically translated to your chosen language in your ears through your Galaxy Buds3 FEs, and when you respond in your language, your connected phone will play your words back to them in their own language.

Sweet, right? See, the future isn’t all bad.