# live-translate-mcp
[](https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/waxberry-dev/live-translate-mcp)
**Real-time English ↔ Mandarin speech translation for Claude — powered by Whisper, Claude AI, and Piper TTS.**
Give Claude the ability to listen, translate, and speak. `live-translate-mcp` is a [Model Context Protocol (MCP)](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) server that adds speech translation as a native tool inside Claude Desktop and Claude Code. Hand it an audio file, and it transcribes, translates, synthesises, and plays the result — entirely on your machine, with Claude handling the translation.
---
## What it does
| Step | Technology | Where it runs |
|------|-----------|---------------|
| Speech → Text | [OpenAI Whisper](https://github.com/openai/whisper) (via `@huggingface/transformers`) | Local |
| Text → Translation | [Claude](https://anthropic.com/claude) (Opus 4.8) | Anthropic API |
| Translation → Speech | [Piper TTS](https://github.com/rhasspy/piper) (ONNX) | Local |
Audio never leaves your machine except for the translated text sent to the Claude API. ASR and TTS run fully on-device.
---
## Tools
### `translate_file`
Translate a WAV audio file. Pass an absolute path — the server transcribes it, translates the text via Claude, synthesises speech, saves `_translated.wav` next to the original, and plays it automatically.
```
Translate /Users/alice/meeting_clip.wav
```
**Returns:** original text, translation, and the path to the saved output file.
### `translate_speech`
Translate raw audio passed as a base64-encoded WAV string. Returns the transcription, translation, and synthesised audio as base64 WAV — useful for programmatic workflows.
### `health_check`
Verify that all dependencies (Whisper model cache, Piper voice files, `espeak-ng`) are present and ready before making a translation request.
---
## Installation
No installation required. Run it directly with `npx`:
```bash
npx -y live-translate-mcp
```
Or install globally:
```bash
npm install -g live-translate-mcp
```
**Prerequisites:**
- Node.js 18+
- An Anthropic API key
- `espeak-ng` — for TTS phonemisation (`brew install espeak-ng` on macOS, `apt install espeak-ng` on Linux)
The Whisper model (~150 MB) and Piper voice models (~200 MB) download automatically on first use and are cached in `~/.live-translate/`.
---
## Claude Desktop setup
Add the following to your Claude Desktop configuration file:
**macOS:** `~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json`
**Windows:** `%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json`
```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"live-translate": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "live-translate-mcp"],
"env": {
"ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
}
}
}
}
```
Restart Claude Desktop. You'll see `live-translate` appear in the tools panel.
---
## Claude Code setup
```bash
claude mcp add live-translate -- npx -y live-translate-mcp
```
Then set your API key in the environment before starting Claude Code, or pass it via the MCP env config.
---
## Usage examples
Once configured, just ask Claude naturally:
> "Translate this audio file for me: /Users/alice/recording.wav"
> "Use translate_file on /tmp/interview.wav"
> "Check if live-translate is ready"
Claude will call the appropriate tool automatically.
---
## Supported languages
| Language | ASR | Translation | TTS |
|----------|-----|-------------|-----|
| English | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mandarin Chinese (普通话) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Language is detected automatically from the audio — no need to specify it.
---
## How it compares
| | live-translate-mcp | Cloud speech APIs |
|--|--|--|
| ASR | Local (Whisper) | Remote |
| Translation | Claude API | Remote |
| TTS | Local (Piper) | Remote |
| Audio privacy | Audio stays on device | Audio uploaded |
| Cost | Claude API only | Per-minute pricing |
| Offline | Partially (ASR + TTS) | No |
---
## Environment variables
| Variable | Default | Description |
|----------|---------|-------------|
| `ANTHROPIC_API_KEY` | — | **Required.** Your Anthropic API key. |
| `PIPER_VOICE_DIR` | `~/.live-translate/voices` | Path to Piper `.onnx` voice files. |
---
## Related
- **[live-translate](https://github.com/waxberry-dev/live-translate)** — the standalone CLI for push-to-talk translation with no API key required, using local models end-to-end.
- [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) — the open standard this server implements.
- [Piper TTS](https://github.com/rhasspy/piper) — the local TTS engine powering speech synthesis.
---
## Licence
MIT