WASHINGTON — We’re getting closer to a world without a language barrier.

Skype technology lets users translate what they say to the person on the other end of the call.

The service already translates in Spanish, English, Mandarin and Italian. Now, add French and German to the list. Skype debuted the new languages in a demonstration to industry colleagues — not without a few hitches in translation.

See the video of the conversation here:

So far, the Skype translator is in beta and only available for Windows users. But as it translates a user’s voice, it also displays the text version of what he or she said on the screen, which makes understanding that much easier.