Skype Translator is a new feature that allows us to have conversations with people who speak other languages. For example, if I have to make a call to a client in China and he does not know English to communicate with me thanks to Skype Translator we will be able to establish a conversation without any problem. Microsoft has just updated the list of languages that are already supported by this new feature that the CEO of Microsoft announced at a conference organized by Recode two years ago. The service is a type of artificial intelligence that involves training artificial neural networks on large amounts of data in order to make inferences about new data. How this function works is somewhat complex to explain, but what really matters is that it works very well indeed.
This software eliminates the typical taglines like "um", "ah" translating the text almost at the same time that we or our interlocutor is speaking. As the minutes go by, the neural network is learning about the way of speaking of each user and the translation is done almost instantaneously. Being a process that requires human interaction, the learning curve may be different with some users. After many requests, Microsoft has finally added Russian in Skype Translator, which adds to the previous 8: English, Spanish, Chinese, German, Portuguese, French, Italian and Arabic.
Despite the arrival of other platforms that allow free calls and video calls between users, Skype is knowing how to adapt to new market changes by offering an option that is currently only offered by the company. But Skype Translator not only translate conversations in real time, but it also allows us to start conversations with people who speak other languages, thanks to Skype's automatic translation service, which supports more than 50 languages.