Can translations be automated?

Yes, on Pro. Create a rule with the action Translate article and pick the language, and every new article that matches the rule is translated as it arrives, up to 100 articles a day. Translated articles open in that language with the bar "Translated from French by Inoreader." and See original.

Create a translating rule

1. Go to Automate > Rules and click Create rule.
2. Choose the trigger, for example New article in feed or New article in folder, and the feed or folder.
3. Click + Add condition if you want to translate only articles that match a condition.
4. Click + Add action, choose Translate article and pick the language.
5. Click Save rule.

The language list is preselected with your Translate articles to language, or else your interface language. Beside it, "Limits apply" shows the daily limit and how much of it is used, and "Limit reached" with Contact us appears once today's count is full. What are rules? explains triggers, conditions and actions, and What actions can rules perform? lists the other actions.

Translation by the rule

The translation happens in the background shortly after the article arrives. Until it's done, the article shows "This article is currently being translated by a rule." with Refresh. The result is stored as your version of the article, so it opens translated. An article that is already in the chosen language is skipped and not counted, a failed translation is retried up to three times without costing you a translation, and an article whose publisher doesn't allow translation is skipped.

To email, push or send the translated article somewhere, create a second rule with the trigger Another rule matched: it runs only after the translating rule's actions are done, so it gets the article after translation.

The daily limit

A rule translates 100 articles a day, or 1,000 on Team Intelligence plans. The limit is per user, not shared across a team, and a day's unused translations don't carry over. Once the limit is reached, the rest of that day's matching articles aren't translated, not even later. The count starts again the next day. Run rule applies the rule to the latest 1,000 articles of its sources at once, so it can use up a whole day's limit in one go. Translating by hand is separate and has no daily limit on Pro, as How do I translate an article? describes.

Translate pre-filtered content: a rule over a tag, or with a condition, spends the 100 translations on articles you'll read.

Plans and limits

Rules are a Pro feature, 30 included. Free accounts have none. The feature page Read any feed in your language has an overview, and the blog post Introducing new rule triggers and actions: Translations, summaries, and more introduces the action.