It took us several weeks before we received an invitation. If you’re using Windows 8/8.1/10 preview and are interested in commonly spoken languages like English, Spanish, Mandarin, or German, you may have a better chance of receiving an invitation. Registration for the Skype Translator Preview is still open. What if you could have the best of both worlds? What if you could communicate in whatever your language you’re comfortable with, while also speaking in the language of the listener? This idea is the foundation of many science-fiction stories, but Microsoft’s new Skype Translator hopes to make it science fact. Conversing in the native language of a friend or business partner, however, is an act of courtesy which can strengthen a relationship. The ability to communicate in your native language is an advantage, especially in business, even if your partner is fluent. These common languages help facilitate conversation across the globe, but their popularity spans not even a quarter of the world’s populace. Mandarin, a dialect of Chinese, is spoken by almost 1.4 billion. Fitbit Versa 3Įnglish is the second most commonly spoken language on the planet, with about 1.2 billion speakers across the globe. The recording cut out at one point, totally changing the meaning of one Mandarin phrase from “Of course, here you go” to “When to you.” It also mis-recognized my English “bitter” as “better,” resulting in an incorrect translation. Other than that it transcribed pretty exactly what we said, and did so surprisingly quickly.
In this basic test, Skype did well in the speech-recognition step for both English and Mandarin. Here you go.A: Hmm, that’s not bad.B: There’s nothing in it.A: What do you mean?B: I mean, it’s just coffee.A: I figured that.B: It’s not too bitter for you?A: It’s a little bitter, but it’s okay.Īnd here’s what Skype came up with (remember speaker B’s lines were originally spoken in Mandarin): A: Can I try your coffee?B: When to you.A: That’s not bad.B: There’s nothing.A: What do you mean?B: I mean, there’s only a cup of coffee.A: I figured that.B: Don’t you think it’s too hard?A: It’s a little better, but it’s ok.
Here’s the original: A: Can I try your coffee?B: Sure. To give the translation tool its best chance, we were careful to speak slowly and precisely. We started out with a dead-simple dialogue intended for beginning learners of English. We translated speaker B’s lines to Mandarin to see how close Skype could translate back to the original English.
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