Telegram’s last hurrah for 2021 brings a lot of new features, as always. Users will now be able to react without sending a message in one-on-one chats and in groups and channels as well. If you’re sending a message with a spoiler in it, you can now hide it behind a label that can be tapped if the receiver is ready to be spoiled. Users will also now be able to translate any message received into their preferred language. The December 2021 update also brings themed QR codes and more interactive emoji.
There are times when you want to react to a message that you receive but you don’t want to send an actual message. The best way would be to just send a reaction and now Telegram users will be able to quickly do so. Double-tap on a message to send a thumbs-up reaction. But if you want to send other emoji reactions, tap on the message and you’ll see others like the surprised face, fire, and even thumbs down. You can choose your default reaction emoji for private chats (which will always be on) while admins for groups and channels can decide whether to turn on the reactions and which of the reaction emojis will be available.
Spoiler culture is upon us but if you don’t like finding out about things before you’ve watched or read them, you can tell your Telegram friends to hide things behind the new spoiler formatting. When you’re typing anything that can be considered a spoiler, highlight the text and then choose the spoiler format which will hide the selected part. When the person you’re chatting with is ready to read it, they can tap the spoiler section and the words will be readable.
Telegram says they have half a billion users globally and so translation should be an important part of the app. Now finally users can translate any message into the language they prefer. Once you enable Translation in the settings, you can now tap on the dedicated Translate button in the context menu. The available languages will be dependent on your phone’s operating system. You can also disable translation for languages that you already speak fluently.
This is the last update for Telegram in 2021 and these are pretty great new features to have. The update also brings themed QR codes with personalized colors and patterns for those with a public profile. And just like their other updates, there are now more interactive emojis for one-on-one chats.
