Choose a model for voice conversation, speech translation, or simultaneous interpretation.
Migrate from closed-source models
If you use an OpenAI or Gemini real-time speech model, use the following table to select a Bailian model for the same use case.
Closed-source examples | Bailian recommendation | |
|---|---|---|
Real-time conversation | OpenAI GPT-Live 1, Gemini 3.8 Live |
|
Cost-sensitive conversation | OpenAI GPT-Realtime-2.1 Mini |
|
Real-time translation | Gemini 3.5 Live Translate (Preview) |
|
This page covers speech-to-speech. For visual understanding, audio/video analysis, and content moderation, see Omni-modal. For tasks that require reasoning and text output, such as video analysis and content labeling, see Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash.
S2S (speech-to-speech) vs. pipeline
There are two approaches to building voice applications:
S2S | Pipeline (ASR + LLM + TTS) | |
|---|---|---|
Latency | Low -- single-model stream processing | Higher -- three-stage serial processing |
Audio understanding | End-to-end -- perceives tone and emotion and responds accordingly | Converts to text before processing, losing subtle audio cues |
- Use S2S for low latency, audio-aware responses, and interactive conversation.
- Use a pipeline when you want to select ASR, LLM, and TTS models independently.
This page covers the S2S single-model approach (Omni, Qwen-Audio Realtime, and Livetranslate series). For the pipeline approach, select each component separately:
- ASR (speech recognition):Speech-to-text
- LLM (large language model):Text generation
- TTS (text-to-speech):Speech synthesis
Real-time or file mode?
- Real-time: Voice assistants, call centers, and simultaneous interpretation. Streams audio input and speech output.
NoteRealtime API provides WebSocket, WebRTC, and AOQ access. For model support and protocol selection, see Realtime API overview.
- File mode (HTTP): Higher latency but better quality. Ideal for video dubbing, podcast translation, and offline processing. Also supports function calling, web search, thinking mode, and video context (see Companion capabilities below).
Choose a model by use case (S2S single-model approach)
All use cases below use the S2S single-model approach. For the pipeline approach, use the ASR, LLM, and TTS guides linked above.
Use case | Recommended model | API |
|---|---|---|
Realtime audio/video conversation | Realtime API | |
Voice assistants and customer-service conversations |
| Realtime API |
Cost-sensitive conversations |
| Realtime API |
Simultaneous interpretation and live translation |
| Realtime API |
Video dubbing and podcast translation |
| Chat Completions |
Semantic VAD voice assistants and smart customer service (with Function Calling support) |
| Realtime API |
Companion capabilities of the S2S single-model approach
The following sections cover tool calling, web search, and text reasoning in voice applications.
Function calling
To query knowledge bases, check schedules, or trigger workflows based on audio/video content, use Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash-Realtime, or Qwen-Audio Realtime.
Web search
For current information with spoken responses, use Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash-Realtime or Qwen3.5-Omni-Realtime for real-time conversations, or Qwen3.5-Omni (Chat Completions, both Plus and Flash) for file-based calls. The model decides autonomously whether to search. Qwen-Audio Realtime 3.0 Plus/Flash and 3.1 Plus also support web search through enable_search. Web search and Function Calling cannot be enabled together.
Not supported by Qwen3-Omni-Flash or the Livetranslate model.
Thinking mode
Qwen3-Omni-Flash does not support voice generation in thinking mode.
Speech translation
The following model series support speech translation:
- Qwen3.8-Livetranslate: Supports 60 source languages, speech output in 29 languages, and audio and image input. See Model information.
- Qwen3.5-Livetranslate: 60 languages (29 with audio+text output, 31 text-only). Covers Chinese, English, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and more.
- Qwen3-Livetranslate: 18 languages and 5 Chinese dialects (~3 s latency). File mode accepts video input for context-aware translations. 7 languages produce text-only output.
- Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash-Realtime: Supports real-time speech translation and the same 36 speech output languages and dialects as Qwen3.5-Omni-Realtime. See the voice list for the languages supported by each voice.
- Qwen3.5-Omni: 29 output languages and 7 Chinese dialects. Strong audio/video understanding and web search. Inject terminology and domain context via system prompt. Real-time and file modes.
- Qwen3-Omni-Flash: 11 output languages and 8 Chinese dialects. Inject terminology and domain context via system prompt. Real-time and file modes.
NoteUse Livetranslate for ready-to-use translation. Choose Qwen3.5-Omni for offline speech output with web search and terminology injection.
Supported languages
Language | Qwen3.8 / 3.5-Livetranslate | Qwen3-Livetranslate | Qwen3.5-Omni | Qwen3-Omni-Flash |
|---|---|---|---|---|
English | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Chinese (Mandarin) | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Cantonese | Text-only | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Sichuan dialect | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Shanghainese | Supported | Supported | -- | Supported |
Beijing dialect | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Tianjin dialect | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Nanjing dialect | -- | -- | Supported | Supported |
Shaanxi dialect | -- | -- | Supported | Supported |
Minnan dialect | -- | -- | Supported | Supported |
French | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
German | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Russian | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Italian | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Spanish | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Portuguese | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Japanese | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Korean | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Thai | Supported | Text-only | Supported | Supported |
Indonesian | Supported | Text-only | Supported | -- |
Vietnamese | Supported | Text-only | Supported | -- |
Arabic | Supported | Text-only | Supported | -- |
Hindi | Supported | Text-only | Supported | -- |
Turkish | Supported | Text-only | Supported | -- |
Finnish | Supported | -- | Supported | -- |
Polish | Supported | -- | Supported | -- |
Dutch | Supported | -- | Supported | -- |
Czech | Supported | -- | Supported | -- |
Urdu | Supported | -- | Supported | -- |
Tagalog | Supported | -- | Supported | -- |
Swedish | Supported | -- | Supported | -- |
Danish | Supported | -- | Supported | -- |
Hebrew | Supported | -- | Supported | -- |
Icelandic | Supported | -- | Supported | -- |
Malay | Supported | -- | Supported | -- |
Norwegian | Supported | -- | Supported | -- |
Persian | Supported | -- | Supported | -- |
Greek | Text-only | Text-only | -- | -- |
Afrikaans | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Asturian | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Belarusian | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Bulgarian | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Bengali | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Bosnian | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Catalan | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Cebuano | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Estonian | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Galician | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Gujarati | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Croatian | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Hungarian | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Javanese | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Kazakh | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Kannada | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Kyrgyz | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Latvian | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Macedonian | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Malayalam | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Marathi | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Punjabi | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Romanian | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Slovak | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Slovenian | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Swahili | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Tajik | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Azerbaijani | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
Ukrainian | Text-only | -- | -- | -- |
"Supported" = speech + text output. "Text-only" = text output only, no speech.
Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash-Realtime and Qwen3.5-Omni support 113 input languages and dialects.
Qwen3.8 / 3.5-Livetranslate supports 60 languages (29 with audio and text, 31 text only).
Recommended models
The table lists the entry-point model in each series. To pin a dated version for regression testing or stability, see All models below.
Model | API | Use cases |
|---|---|---|
qwen3.8-omni-flash-realtime | Realtime API | Realtime audio/video conversation |
qwen-audio-3.1-realtime-plus / qwen-audio-3.0-realtime-flash | Realtime API | Realtime voice conversation |
qwen3.5-omni-plus / qwen3.5-omni-flash | Chat Completions | Offline speech output |
qwen3.8-livetranslate-flash-realtime | Realtime API | Realtime translation |
qwen3-livetranslate-flash | Chat Completions | Audio/video file translation |
All models
Qwen-Audio
Model | API | Input | Function calling | Web search | Thinking mode | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Realtime API | audio, text | Supported | Supported | -- | -- |
| Realtime API | audio, text | Supported | Supported | -- | -- |
| Realtime API | audio, text | Supported | Supported | -- | -- |
Qwen3.8-Omni
Model | API | Input | Function calling | Web search | Thinking mode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Realtime API | Text, audio, image, video | Supported | Supported | -- |
For multichannel audio, text and audio output, and MCP usage, see the real-time guide.
Qwen3.5-Omni
Model | API | Input | Function calling | Web search | Thinking mode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Realtime API | Text, audio, image, video | Supported | Supported | -- |
| Realtime API | Text, audio, image, video | Supported | Supported | -- |
| Chat Completions | Text, audio, image, video | Supported (Beijing, text output) | Supported | -- |
| Chat Completions | Text, audio, image, video | Supported (Beijing, text output) | Supported | -- |
| Realtime API | Text, audio, image, video | Supported | Supported | -- |
| Realtime API | Text, audio, image, video | Supported | Supported | -- |
| Chat Completions | Text, audio, image, video | Supported (Beijing, text output) | Supported | -- |
| Chat Completions | Text, audio, image, video | Supported (Beijing, text output) | Supported | -- |
Qwen3-Omni
Model | API | Input | Function calling | Web search | Thinking mode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WebSocket | Text, audio, image, video | -- | -- | -- |
| Chat Completions | Text, audio, image, video | Supported | -- | Supported |
Qwen3.8-Livetranslate
Model | API | Input | Languages |
|---|---|---|---|
Realtime API | Audio, image | 60 |
Qwen3.5-Livetranslate
Model | API | Input | Languages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Realtime API | Audio, images | 60 |
| Realtime API | Audio | 60 |
Qwen3-Livetranslate
Model | API | Input | Languages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chat Completions | Audio, video | 18 |
| Chat Completions | Audio, video | 18 |
What's next
API documentation by model series:
- Qwen-Audio Realtime (real-time voice conversation): Realtime Audio Chat (Qwen-Audio-Realtime)
- Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash-Realtime (real-time): Qwen-Omni-Realtime
- Qwen3.5-Omni (offline speech output): Non-real-time (Qwen-Omni)
- Qwen3.8-Livetranslate / Qwen3.5-Livetranslate (real-time): Real-time audio and video translation - Qwen
- Qwen3-Livetranslate (file): Audio and video file translation (Qwen)