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No more lost in translation

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In a week's time, I'll be in Guangzhou to assist a managed ISV. Guangzhou is located in the province of Guangdong, and the people there primarily speak Mandarin and Cantonese. I speak Cantonese somewhat fluently, but I know very little of Mandarin. This is because I can't read or write Chinese. To my excitement, there is a new translator service called Microsoft Translator. What's even more interesting is that a new "T-bot" that translates as people chat in Windows Live Messenger and it is part of the Microsoft Translator team's growing success story. Fear no more as when one is lost in translation.

Microsoft translation technology is now available for Live Search, Internet Explorer 8, the Windows Live Toolbar, and the Windows Live Messenger T-bot. The translator, often available as a button in those programs, can help translate Office documents, Web pages, and chat sessions. It also offers the more traditional Web translation, where users type a sentence or paragraph to be translated.

To use T-bot, add mtbot@hotmail.com to your Windows Live Messenger buddy list. When you initiate a chat, T-bot will talk back and walk you through which languages you want to use at both ends of the conversation. Once you select your languages, invite another person to the chat. T-bot will assume you have invited someone who speaks the target language and then translate everything you say. The chat translation time delay is usually less than a second.

With my T-bot, I feel very confident about communicating with the R&D team in Guangzhou. So far they have been copying me in emails. That's great except that the email was written in Chinese! :p

Fear no more!

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