Today, we are releasing updates to Skype Translator Preview including two new languages, Chinese and Italian. The updated app also has new features to help make speech to speech translation even easier such as continuous speech recognition and automatic volume control.

Here is a full list of updates to the new and improved Skype Translator Preview:

• Two new languages: Chinese Mandarin and Italian
  Skype Translator now speaks Chinese and Italian, in addition to Spanish and English.
• Text to speech translation
  Hear the instant messages of your partner, translated or not. This is especially useful in noisy places where you can’t talk.
• Continuous recognition
  See the recognized text as you are speaking. No need to wait for a pause anymore.
• Automatic volume control
  Your partner can speak while the translation is still going on. You will hear the translation at full volume, and your partner at a lower volume, so that you can still follow the translation. This helps to create a more fluent and dynamic conversation.
• Mute option for translated voice
  If you would rather just read the transcript, and use Skype Translator as a real-time subtitling tool, there is now an option to easily turn the translated audio on or off, depending on your preference.
• Deep Neural Networks in translation
  The technique of applying deep neural networks to speech recognition has drastically improved the recognition quality. We have applied this technique to translation as well.

Read more about these updates on the Skype blog, and be sure to sign up at try out the new features yourself at www.skype.com/translator.

To learn more about the work the Microsoft Research Asia team did behind the scenes to help support Chinese in this release, check out this video.

Learn More about Skype Translator:

• Skype Translator homepage
• Skype Translator videos
• The science behind Skype Translator