Skype makes it easier for customers to connect with people around the world, no matter where they are and what language they speak. In December, Skype announced the first phase of the Skype Translator preview program and now they are excited to announce Skype Translator’s next milestone, the addition of two spoken languages: Italian and Chinese (Mandarin) to the current offering of Spanish and English.

Mandarin is a very challenging language to learn, with approximately 10,000 characters and multiple tones, and is one of the most difficult languages for a native English speaker to master, along with Arabic, Japanese, and Korean.

Microsoft researchers and scientists at Skype’s labs in Beijing, China, are working very closely with their US-based colleagues and have played an instrumental role in building the recognition, language and translation models for Mandarin. In 2012, their team of researchers unveiled the first demonstration of a speech translation system. Since then, the team has invested years of hard work, dedication and enthusiasm to make this language in Skype Translator a reality today.