back to article Time to get your babble on: Microsoft opens Skype Translator Preview to all comers

Microsoft's Skype Translator, which automatically converts some voice calls and IMs between languages, has been available to beta testers for some time, but Redmond has now opened it up as a Preview to the general public – provided they have the right operating system. The Translator Preview software has been in circulation …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Doctor_Wibble

      "some translator automatic very difficult with text bastard complicated"

      My pidgin-o-matic works fine, who needs a computer?

  2. W Donelson

    Too bad MS has ruined the app. What a mess. You would think after 30 years that MS would have learned something about user-friendly design, but no.

    How Ballmer completely wrecked Microsoft: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft-downfall-emails-steve-ballmer

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Shouldnt that be

    "The app previously known as Skype" ???

    That SKY judgement isnt going to go away.

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Shouldnt that be

      Shouldn't they have lodged that complaint 20 years or so ago?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Skype Translator ... – its potential in breaking down ... is only limited by our own imaginations!"

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Working in Germany and having to do a lot of translations to and from English, I am a regular user of Bing Translator (50% usable) and Google Translate (30% usable). Both are very poor - and interestingly the more formal the English, the less accurate they are! Google's biggest failing point is the word "not", it just leaves it out! "Do not" translates to the German equivalent of "do", don't translates correctly.

      If Skype works similarly, then it could lead to some embarrassing problems...

      "Do not shoot the hostages!"

      BANG!

      "Er, what just happened?"

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      We have been warned!

      “Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”

      Douglas Adams

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Let's take it for a spin...

    If not, we have a mess, and I very much hope and a voice recognition system, which is better than the actors work because, boy, I do not use Facebook, YouTube, and.

    OK. It's not so bad. Now where is amanfrommars when you need him?

  6. Tom Maddox Silver badge
    Trollface

    Lack of focus

    They would have gotten the product out of the door much sooner if they'd focused more on languages which are actually in use. I mean, who speaks Welsh?

    1. Little Poppet

      Re: Lack of focus

      Actually they have focused on the main languages.

      Welsh and the such are a bonus.

  7. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    "I vant to fondle your buttocks...'

    When I use an online translator, I cycle the paragraph back forth between English and whatever until the meaning stabilizes. It often takes three or four passes with adjustments to ensure it says what you want.

    I can't imagine how unreliable 'on the fly' translation would be in comparison.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Childcatcher

      Re: "I vant to fondle your buttocks...'

      "My hovercraft is full of eels." - Monty Python

      1. Sporkinum

        Re: "I vant to fondle your buttocks...'

        My hovercraft is full of eels in many languages

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "I vant to fondle your buttocks...'

        > Best of all is when Google translate manages to swap a negative for a positive...

        Or changes currencies or language names.

      2. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        Re: "I vant to fondle your buttocks...'

        But if one doesn't know the other language, then the problem you've described simply does not exist.

        As far as we know.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The BBC got exclusive access for W1A.

    BBC W1A got exclusive access to MS, codename 'Syncopatico' which is (supposedly*) based on Sharepoint.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01vgg1j

    (Check out the on screen text translations).

    All good. Yeh, no.- Cool.

    (*Well it is, but it isn't.)

    An added touch would have been Windows Update to appear just before the blank screen.

  9. Forget It

    Trouble with automatic translation: they present only the most popular result. If you use an uncommon idiom, for dramatic effect, it is almost bound to spoil your party. You are thus reduced to newspeak just to communicate - not just a language barrier also a cultural barrier.

    See the Edinburgh Prof explain it all better than me here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UVgFjJeFGY&t=26m3s

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I try to avoid idiomatic language when talking to a non-native English speaker anyway in order to make understanding as easy as possible, so I don't think it's unreasonable or a hardship to do the same when dealing with translation software. More problematic with real-time translation IMO is how it copes with all the umms, ahhs, pauses, repitition, etc that normal speech is littered with.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Not nearly as reduced as their experience will be if they can't understand what you're saying. :)

          I wasn't suggesting simplifying meaning, rather simplifying vocabulary and syntax, and avoiding idiomatic speech, which is surely sensible? It's a very well understood approach in technical authoring, where writing to a given comprehension score is a requirement, for example.

      2. Roland6 Silver badge

        @Credas

        I try to avoid idiomatic language when talking to a non-native English speaker anyway in order to make understanding as easy as possible, so I don't think it's unreasonable or a hardship to do the same when dealing with translation software.

        Whilst that is not unreasonable when you are expecting the recipient to have to translate what it is you are saying. The real problem is taking something that the originator expected the recipient to be able to read in its original language and understand its contextual and cultural references.

        Note this doesn't just apply to say English - Chinese translations, but also to say Middle English (used by Chaucer) - English. One of the interesting aspects of Wikipedia is the number of articles covering various common phrases eg. "Hoist with his own petar" Shakespear. (Yes he does use 'petar' and not 'petard').

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    At least they're honest about it now.

    At least it is now certain that every word you speak is processed by a computer in the path between you and others. If that Sky court case doesn't go away I may have a new name for it:

    Echelon II

    Also a pox on the abomination they made of the code. Somewhere in MS there must be a couple of highly paid UI specialists that are winning bets amongst themselves who can get the biggest abomination of a user interface signed off for production. Any UI MS has had its hands on has gone past "harder to use" into downright unpleasant.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: highly paid UI specialists

      In my experience the highly paid "specialists" will be in management of some kind, probably 4 or 5 levels removed from any of the plebs who actually cut code but with enough authority to overrule all the actual UI people. Some vaguely defined business need will have overridden any concerns about "usablilty"......

  11. Hellcat

    The Skype Translator Preview is only available for Windows 8.1 users, however. Microsoft says it should also work on the Windows 10 Technical Preview, but attempts to get it up and running on that operating system here in Vulture West have, so far, proved fruitless.

    Maybe that was

    (•_•)

    ( •_•)>⌐■-■

    (⌐■_■)

    Lost in translation? Awwww yeah!

  12. sabroni Silver badge
    Mushroom

    In addition, instant messages can be translated into ..... Klingon.

    Grow the fuck up!

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. sabroni Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Is it true that Klingon was based on Quechua?

        Please refer to my previous post!

  13. HxBro
    Headmaster

    Can it translate...

    Cheeky Nandos and banter

  14. Sarah Balfour

    German is probably the worst…

    As I MAY have mentioned before, I'm trying - and failing - to improve my German. The problem with Germans is that they tend to make things up as the go along, and it's basically the linguistic version of Lego (or perhaps Sticklebricks would be more accurate). Don't have a word for summat, just stick a couple together.

    This means that many compound words, whilst being perfectly meaningful to a German are completely nonsensical to an English speaker, as the can only be translated as their constituent parts which, often, bear no relation to the meaning of the whole.

    But, ironically, German can also be beautifully succinct; I love the word 'übermorgen' - literally, as you can probably guess 'over morning', which is German for 'the day after tomorrow' (for those not too au fait (oops! Gone French now!) there's no specific word in German for 'tomorrow'; guess they decided, with typical German efficiency that, as tomorrow never comes, they may as well just reuse 'morgen').

    I'm not interested in SPEAKING German - fuck, I'm not particularly interested in speaking ENGLISH - but I'd love to improve my comprehension (66% of the bands I listen to write partly - or wholly - in German (even many of the ones who aren't from a German-speaking country)) and writing.

    1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

      Re: German is probably the worst…

      Here is a lovely one that is a whole paragraph in one word: "her­kömm­lich".

      It basically amounts to a putdown of other, similar objects, acts or events that are similar, but not quite as good. It's impossible to translate but it's a Godsend for marketing.

    2. joed

      Re: German is probably the worst…

      "übermorgen" like constructs are not just German thing. I'm quite sure any language has these (definitely east).

      Add some conjugation, declension and other ways some languages obfuscate meaning of conversation and there's still some hope for privacy, for now.

    3. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      Re: German is probably the worst…

      Think: spacesoptional

      Notthatdifficultreally.

  15. Egons Proton Pack
    Joke

    It will be good as long as there is an option to take back what you said to the vl'hurg about his mother...

    1. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

      Re: take back what you said to the vl'hurg

      No need. My small dog is at the ready.

  16. Brandon 2

    I hope it works better than google's speech to text message system. Going from English voice to English text only works about 10% of the time for me... granted, I live in Atlanta, Georgia USA (pronounced "Jaw-juh" down here)... so that probably has a lot to do with it.

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