{"id":3695,"date":"2016-03-30T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/translation\/2016\/03\/30\/microsoft-translator-brings-end-to-end-speech-translation-to-everyone-with-the-worlds-first-speech-translation-api\/"},"modified":"2016-03-30T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T22:00:00","slug":"microsoft-translator-brings-end-to-end-speech-translation-to-everyone-with-the-worlds-first-speech-translation-api","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https://www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/translator/blog\/2016\/03\/30\/microsoft-translator-brings-end-to-end-speech-translation-to-everyone-with-the-worlds-first-speech-translation-api\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Translator brings end-to-end speech translation to everyone with the world\u2019s first Speech Translation API"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, we released a new version of Microsoft Translator API<\/a> that adds real-time speech-to-speech (and speech to text) translation capabilities to the existing text translation API. Powered by Microsoft’s state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technologies, this capability has been available to millions of users of Skype<\/a> for over a year, and to iOS<\/a> and Android<\/a> users of the Microsoft Translator apps since late 2015. Now, businesses will be able to add these speech translation capabilities to their applications or services and offer more natural and effective user experiences to their customers and staff.<\/p>\n

Speech translation is available for eight languages \u2014 Arabic<\/a>, Chinese Mandarin, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Translation to text is available in all of Microsoft Translator’s 50+ supported languages<\/a>. Translation to spoken audio is available in 18 supported languages.<\/p>\n

This new version of Microsoft Translator is the first end-to-end speech translation solution optimized for real-life conversations (vs. simple human to machine commands) available on the market. Before today, speech translation solutions needed to be cobbled together from a number of different APIs (speech recognition, translation, and speech synthesis), were not optimized for conversational speech or designed to work with each other. Now, end users and businesses alike can remove language barriers with the integration of speech translation in their familiar apps and services.<\/p>\n

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How can my business use speech translation technology?<\/h2>\n

Speech translation can be used in a variety of person-to-person, group or human-to-machine scenarios. Person-to-person scenarios may include one-way translation such as personal translation, subtitling, or remote or in-person multi-lingual communications similar to what is currently found in Skype Translator or the Microsoft Translator apps for iOS and Android. Group scenarios could include real-time presentations such as event keynotes, webcasts and university classes, or gatherings such as in \u2014person meetings or online gaming chatrooms. Human-to-machine scenarios could include business intelligence scenarios (such as the analysis or customer calls logs) or AI interactions.<\/p>\n

We are just starting to scratch the surface of the scenarios where this technology will help and, as it is machine learning based, its quality and therefore applicability will improve with time as more people and companies are using it.<\/p>\n

Several partner companies have tested the API and integrated it into their own apps:<\/p>\n