Conversation mode turns a single computer into a live two-way interpreter. Pick any two of 10 supported languages — English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Dutch, and Hindi — and StreamVox detects the language of every spoken line on its own and translates it into the other language of the pair. Both directions appear in one feed, each translated block labeled with its direction (English → Español, Español → English) and each speaker marked with their own color.
When it shines: two people, one screen
The strongest use is an in-person conversation with the screen between you:
- A job interview or client meeting across a table
- A reception desk or front office serving foreign visitors
- A family dinner where not everyone speaks the same language
Each person speaks their own language and reads the other's replies in theirs. One machine works as the interpreter for both sides of the table.
It's not just the microphone
Conversation mode can listen to the microphone, a chosen app, or system audio — one source per session. That opens a second use: following someone else's bilingual conversation on your own screen.
- A stream or podcast where the host and guest speak different languages
- A press conference where questions and answers don't match
- A game voice chat where your team talks in two languages at once
What it is not
Conversation mode is not the way to make the other side of a Zoom call read your language — your overlay is visible only on your own screen. For calls, each participant runs StreamVox on their own computer with their own language pair; that setup scales to any number of participants. See Does StreamVox work with Zoom, Teams, and Discord? for that flow.
Switching between Translate and Conversation
Each mode applies its own settings on a fresh start: press Stop, switch the mode, and start again — it takes a few seconds. Note that switching modes (or changing a language) clears the current text from the screen, so copy anything you want to keep first using the Copy button on either pane.