The Microsoft Translator app for Android and iOS just got a neat new feature which now adds a more natural flow on translated conversations.
According to Microsoft, the latest update now enables the app to deliver translated conversations that are "more natural than ever," which sounds pretty exciting for a software of this kind.
Many of us have occasionally resorted to various translation software to figure out what something written in another language means. Many times we were left quite puzzled with a broken translation – knowing the translated words, but still trying to figure out the meaning of the text.
That's because some translation software is good for translating word for word, verbatim, but the nuances and linguistics, word typology, word order and other specifics of each language make it difficult to convey the same meaning automatically in another language. Consequently, we end up with translated words, but the overall text sounds like a poorly-written instructions manual for some weird gadget, written by a Chinese six-year-old who just learned his first English words. It really sounds far from natural.
It's still better, however, than having no clue what it's all about, and there's no doubt that hardware and software have come a long way and helped a great deal to break linguistic barriers.
Technology has made it easier and more convenient to communicate across languages and different parts of the world, and continuous improvements should make it even better.
Microsoft just announced a new conversation feature for both the iOS and Android versions of its Translator app, allowing users to communicate in a more natural way across languages by relying on their smartphone or smartwatch.
"The new conversation feature uses the same Microsoft Translator translation engine that powers Skype Translator, bringing our advanced machine learning know-how and speech recognition systems to assist you to converse in-person," Microsoft highlights. "The feature supports translation to and from Chinese Mandarin, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish."
The company said that it will add support for more languages in the future.
Microsoft further points out that having both a smartphone and a smartwatch enables the best results from Microsoft Translator.
Interested users can now download the Microsoft Translator app for Android or iOS, or enjoy the new conversation feature after the app update if they already have the app installed. The Microsoft Office Blog, meanwhile, offers more details on the Microsoft Translator natural translation for wearables.
