Skype Translator is an ambitious project to help people of different languages share in real-time video and text conversations. The Skype service already supports English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Mandarin), Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), and Arabic and starting today Russian.
From the Skype Garage Blog:
Russian is the eighth most popular spoken language in the world and our Russian-speaking customers around the world have always been particularly enthusiastic about Skype Translator. For months, we've received many requests to include Russian in Skype Translator's audio language portfolio and we are excited to finally cross this milestone, opening up one of the most dialectically complex languages on earth to anyone with a Skype account.
Built on world-class machine learning technology, Skype Translator allows Skype users speaking different languages to communicate with each other in real time. The more Skype Translator is used, the higher the quality of the translations. We are excited to explore what the future holds as more and more people from diverse backgrounds discover the magic of Skype Translator. User feedback is crucial to Skype Translator's growth and we would like to sincerely thank all of our users and beta testers for their enthusiasm in helping us grow this product.
Overall, it's a great addition. As Skype points out Russian is the eighth most popular spoken language in the world making it vital to the Skype customer base.
Microsoft notes that Russian is now available for Windows Desktop Skype (aka the old app), but it has yet to be added to the Skype Preview app (UWP), which does support Translator. The feature will likely be added in a Store update shortly.
