Skype Translator now offers Arabic as a spoken language.
Microsoft has released Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is used in the Middle East and Northern Africa as a standard form of the Arabic language.
Unlike dialects which may vary greatly from country to country, MSA is used throughout the Arab-speaking world in written and formal communications. This version of Arabic is taught in schools and used by journalists, for example.
Arabic is the official language of 22 countries, and is the native language of more than 200-million people residing in a geographical region stretching from Southwest Asia to Northwest Africa.
Natural Language Processing researchers within Microsoft’s Advanced Technology Laboratory have been leading the project to train Arabic speech models for Skype Translator and for the Microsoft Translator apps for Android and iOS.
Skype Translator now provides eight spoken languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Mandarin), Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), and now Arabic. It also supports more than 50 written languages.
