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Microsoft software translates speech to another language

Written by James Delahunty @ 11 Mar 2012 11:14 User comments (3)

Microsoft software translates speech to another language Microsoft demos promising speech translation software.
The software synthesizes speech in a foreign language but keeps it in a voice that sounds like yours. It was demonstrated at Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, campus on Tuesday by research scientist Frank Soong.

He was able to show the software reading out text in Spanish using the voice of his boss Rick Rashid, and then demonstrated a Mandarin translation using the voice of Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie.

"For a monolingual speaker traveling in a foreign country, we'll do speech recognition followed by translation, followed by the final text to speech output [in] a different language, but still in his own voice," said Soong.

The new software could be used to help students learning a foreign language too. The system needs about an hour of training to develop a model capable of reading out in a person's voice.

Hear demonstrations of translations at MIT's Technology Review website.

Tags: Microsoft
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3 user comments

111.3.2012 12:35

great things are yet to come

211.3.2012 20:00

Sorry this have been done by google with Google translation conversation mode on Android phones months ago, i use all the time for fun

312.3.2012 10:34

So now we know where Dr Noonian Soong came from !

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