Personal Project

Murasaki Translate

Real-time bilingual conversation transcription/translation app

Resources

Overview

Murasaki Translate is designed for live bilingual conversations and discussions. It is built to be lightweight, with low-friction controls. The app continuously streams audio in real time and allows users to choose when to transcribe and translate without interrupting the audio stream.

On ChatGPT, you can use audio mode in a similar way, but when you want to translate parts of the conversation, you need to stop audio mode to let it transcribe and translate, which can cause you to miss parts of the conversation. With Murasaki Translate, the audio stream never stops.

Background

I came up with this idea while working on a project in Japan with a local organization. My team used two phones with ChatGPT open. One phone in audio mode listening to them speak, while the other displayed the previous transcription so we could read along.

It actually worked surprisingly well. Seeing this setup made me think: why not build something that continuously streams the audio and lets you transcribe it whenever you want, without interrupting the conversation?