Communicating on Skype is set to cross the language barrier.
The Microsoft-owned company recently demonstrated its upcoming automatic translation service at the 2014 Code conference.
After more than ten years' work on machine translation, Microsoft researchers were able to utilise two projects to further Skype's development - translation of phone calls in real-time and improved speech recognition accuracy.
This latest trial version of Skype Translator is in English and German and follows a 2012 Microsoft demonstration at a conference in China using English and Mandarin. Microsoft is one of several companies working on real-time translation, but Skype is the biggest so far.
Due to be launched as a beta version later this year, the software may be commercially available within the next two and a half years.