Bill Campbell

A Real-time Skype Chat-Message Translator...sweet

July 20, 2006 03:29 PM

Topics: Life | News | Technology

If you have ever used Google Language tools to help understand or communicate in another language then with this Skype Add-on is for you.

Sadly, the product's name, (makes me sound like a robot or someone speaking with a mouth full of marbles ULRTMT v2.6 (Beta) - Universal Language Real-Time Message Translator), does a great disservice to this very useful utility. It is simply marvelous.

tn7_Translateexample.png


I certainly could have used this last week while I was in Buenos Aires. I had only one Spanish word in my vocabulary, which turned out to be more than most Argentineans had in English. Did I ever feel lost!
If you get that same lost feeling in some Skype Chats you will want to have this tool as a short cut on your desktop.

ULRTMT is a beta product, a politically correct term in Skypeland to describe shit. But there were no obvious bugs during my trials. The install needs to be simplified. If you try to install it without studying the instructions (yes study, don't just read and click) you will be embarrassed like I was. The user interface is cluttered and non-intuitive. None the less, it is worth the pain.

A simple use case
Let's look at a simple use. There are many different Use Cases from one on one, multi-languages in a multi-chat, to translating old chats.

1. Start by deciding the language you want for the Skype Chat window. I chose English.
2. In my test scenario I took the role of a Spanish speaker, while ZOverLord (the developer) took the role of an English speaker. So for this scenario I set the translation language field to "English to Spanish".
3. I selected the current Skype Chat that I wanted to participate in, i.e. translate my Spanish into English.
4. I typed my Spanish text into the lower left Window below the instruction bar says: "Type Spanish only below, and press the Enter key to send"

All my Spanish text (Hola Bill, ¿puedes traducir esto?) was translated into English and appeared in the Skype Chat Window as English. Sweet.

Language pairs:

English to Arabic BETA
English to Chinese (Simplified) BETA
English to Chinese Traditional
English to Dutch
English to French
English to German
English to Greek
English to Italian
English to Japanese BETA
English to Korean BETA
English to Portuguese
English to Russion
English to Spanish


tn7_translateexample2.png


Don, the developer prefers his Skype Forum name, ZOverlord. He hails from Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is a retired Tandem Computers consultant.

Don.jpg

Great product concept Don! Thank you. Please go polish it off before starting your next project of creating a version for Skype SMS.




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Comments

Posted by: John Doe at July 27, 2006 2:46 AM

Please make this availbale for Mac OS X.

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