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Skype Translator and the Translation APIs

Break down language barriers with your friends, family and colleagues. Skype translator can help you communicate in 8 languages for voice calls, and in more than 50 languages while instant messaging. This is currently in preview and uses the Translation APIs (also part of the demo) which are part of Cognitive services.

Technologies: Skype Desktop and the Translation APIs

Technical Depth: Anyone

Time: 5-10 minutes

Software: Skype

Hardware: Headset is likely to be needed to reduce the impact of ambient noise

Video: [SKYPE ST FINAL-HD.mp4](SKYPE ST FINAL-HD.mp4)

Demo Notes: Note that this demo requires 2 people to be logged into Skype - one of whom speaks one of the 8 languages supported for voice calls (English, French, German, Arabic, Chinese , Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish)

Accounts: FDStand2016@outlook.com (password is FutureDecoded2016) - TBC Specific Accounts for Skype demo

Use Skype for Desktop

  1. Each user will need to log on to different machines and start Skype - in order to contact one use will need to search for the user other as shown below, then click 'Add to Contacts' and then 'send'

  1. click on the contact you wish to communicate with:

  1. Select the globe symbol - turn on the translator and then select the 2 languages you want to use:

Use Skype Translation

Note that if you use the live speech translation the demo will be affected by the background noise and language ability of the speaker. If necessary use the custom application Demo which uses the same translation APIs and will play back translation to a single user.

Japanese Messaging Examples Spoken Japanese is not supported but you can use the messaging window to communicate:
• lets try Japanese = 日本語を試すことができます。
• this is the best demo = これは、最高のデモ
• Where is the cream? = クリームはどこですか
• How much is this? = これはいくらですか。

If you have a good foreign language speaker and the environment is quiet enough you might want to demo live speech translation. Otherwise use the custom application below or play the video above.
French Examples might include for live speech translation
• Bonjour, comment vas-tu
• Mon nom est Robin = My Name is Robin
• A quelle heure appelez-vous cela ? = What time do you call this?
• J’ai l’amour avenir décodé = I love Future Decoded
• Pouvez-vous traduire cela pour moi ?

Use the Translation APIs in a Custom App - like Skype

This demo builds on the previous Skype demo - it shows the use of the same Speech Translation APIs that Skype uses but used in a custom application. This demo is more suitable where you only have one person to demo the translation APIs to or when there is difficult to organise a 2 person demo.
Extract this Zip and then install the SpeechTranslator.Application file

If the application is working correctly you will see a screen like the following:

Translating Speach into Text

  1. Time to practice your other languages again ! - when you are ready to speak click the 'Start' button and speak.
    a) Practice speaking a foreign language and see what English it comes up with.
    b) Speak english and see it translate into a foreign language
  2. Turn on TTS (Text to speech) and run the same examples as before - you will hear the language being Spoken, subtitles will display the translation in text. Note that not all languages currently support spoken language.

API Information
The Translation APIs are part of Cognitive Services and are an example of cloud based automatic translation. These services are not only used in Skype but also Bing, SharePoint, yammer and Visual Studio. More information can be found here.

The [Speech API] (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/translator/speech.aspx) which was demoed (the other service is the text api) is split into 4 stages of processing:
1.Speech recognition, to convert audio in into text.
2.TrueText: A Microsoft technology that normalizes the text to make it more appropriate for translation - i.e removes the umms and ahhs that populate natural speech.
3.Translation through the text translation engine described above but on translation models specially developed for real life spoken conversations (there are text based models for the different languages as well)
4.Text-to-speech, when necessary, to produce the translated audio.

Setup For reference only (this is already done) - if you want to set-up the Translator Services from scratch Currently you will need to subscribe to the Translator applications on the Azure Marketplace and register a client app to consume the services. • To subscribe to the Translator services go here, click on the translation you are interested in and sign up. • To get a client id and secret for the client to access the Translator services you need to go here and click to register

Azure Portal Note: this is right in the process of changing. And you will be able to just use the services straight off the Azure Portal. Visit the Azure Portal, on the left hand toolbar click the new button, search for 'Cognitive Services', select 'Select Cognitive Services APIs (Preview)' and click the create button. The following 2 API types were created: