The World Just Got Easier to Understand

Science Fiction literature has often turned out to be much more than fiction.  After all, it was Arthur C. Clarke who predicted the deployment of communication satellites long before some scientists worked out the physics and others said it could not be done.  More recently we are still waiting for the food replicator from the Starship Enterprise but anyone who has experienced virtual reality goggles might be thinking the first commercially available “holodeck” can’t be far off.

When I recently discovered a new service provided by Skype my thoughts returned to the Star Trek stories that featured a computer that could universally communicate with any alien form regardless of language.  It was a universal translator.

Skype’s Translator is not universal nor perfect but it sure is a great start.  Translator is available free for those using Skype on computers and devices using Windows 8 versions or above and some Apple products.  The latter do not fully support this Microsoft product.  My tests indicate that those using Apple devices might want to wait a while before trying Translate.

To use Translate, the user signs on to Skype and places a video call.  Before connecting you must select what language you will speak and what language the party you are calling speaks.  When connected, you speak your language (in my case English) and the party you called speaks theirs. During the call you will hear a computer generated voice and see captions in English on your side of the conversation and your friend will hear and see the conversation in their language.   As of this writing, Translate works with English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and two dialects of Chinese.

I tried the English / French version and was impressed.   For sure it is not suitable for very important discussions or any legal proceedings, but is does a good job of translating simple conversations.  It helps to refrain from using jargon and/or idioms in your conversations and you should speak clearly.  Keep the background noise to a minimum. Some reviewers gave it low marks when using the Chinese option.

For those who want to use the Skype Text Chat service the number of supported languages increases to about 50.  Some Microsoft engineer with a good sense of humor even included Klingon as one of the languages.  Again, you type in English and your correspondent sees the message in one of fifty languages currently supported.

I am sure that in a few years this service will look primitive but right now I find it exciting and potentially very useful.