Translation between Spanish and Italian will be much easier for the software, because of similarities shared by each language.

However, Skype’s venture into Mandarin proves just how much of a task it has on its hands.

It’s a hugely ambitious project undertaken by Microsoft, but audio translation has become an increasingly lucrative market for the giants in consumer tech. It hasn’t been without its glitches of course – most notably an embarrassing stint of turning Mandarin into swear words -– but Skype is venturing into its first Asian language, which is no small feat.

And while six voice languages barely put a dent in the roughly 6,500 that exist in the world, it’s a huge improvement on the two languages it showcased at launch. This is a free piece of software we’re talking about too. Microsoft itself admits the technology is still in its early days, but the progress it has made is an achievement by its own merit. Choose another language from 80+ options.Choose English in another language accent.

Skype translator app