14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has recently announced that its Skype Translator preview program now supports two more languages, namely Italian and Chinese, in addition to Spanish and English, which were already included.
Skype Translator is a perfect substitute for the traditional translator, allowing you to talk to someone from another country in your own language and let the app do the hard work of translating what you and your contact are saying.
That’s why adding support for new languages is really a challenge, and Microsoft says that implementing Mandarin was really difficult.
“Microsoft researchers and scientists at our labs in Beijing, China, working very closely with their US-based colleagues, have played an instrumental role in building the recognition, language and translation models for Mandarin,” the company points out in a post today.
Other improvements also available
In addition to support for Mandarin and Italian, Microsoft is also announcing a different pack of improvements that help Skype Translator users make the most of the service more easily.
For instance, the text to speech translation service has been enhanced with an option to hear the instant messages people send to you, and you can select the language you know. In addition, there’s now an option for continuous recognition, which means that text translation is provided as you partner is speaking.
Another new feature of Skype Translator is the automatic volume control, which Microsoft says will make the conversation more fluid.
“Your partner can speak while the translation is still happening. You will hear the translation at full volume, and your partner at a lower volume, so that you can follow the translation,” it explains.
And last but not least, you can now turn the translated audio on and off and instead stick to the transcript, which could make it easier to understand what someone speaking another language says.
Needless to say, Skype Translator is still in development right now, and Microsoft promises to add new features as soon as possible, but as mentioned, it really takes a while to introduce support for more languages to make sure that translating really works as expected.