Microsoft's Skype Translator just added a new skill to its repertoire: The ability to speak Arabic.

"Each of Skype Translator's language releases has been very important for us—bringing us one step closer to breaking down language barriers for people across the world," the Skype team wrote in a blog post. "The Arabic language release is especially important to us, because there is such a diverse Arabic speaking population all over the world."

Specifically, Skype Translator now supports Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is used in the Middle East and Northern Africa. MSA is taught in schools and used throughout the Arab-speaking world in written and formal communications. Dialects, on the other hand, can vary big time from country to country.

"Arabic is the official language of 22 countries. It's the native language of more than 200 million people," the Skype team wrote. Natural language processing researchers within Microsoft's Advanced Technology Laboratory have been leading the effort to train Arabic speech models for Skype Translator, the team added.

With the addition of Arabic, Skype Translator supports eight spoke languages. The list also includes English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Mandarin), Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian). Skype Translator also supports more than 50 written languages, letting you text with people around the world, even if you don't speak the same language.

If you want to try it out, you'll find the new Arabic language setting in the Skype for Windows desktop app under the globe icon. Clicking this will bring up a drop-down menu where you can enable Skype Translator and pick your messaging and spoken language preferences.

Meanwhile, the Skype team also this week added another handy feature: the ability to call and chat with contacts while in Office Online and OneDrive.

"This creates a natural, collaborative experience where you can co-edit a document right alongside a chat so that the chat is in context of the topic being discussed," the team wrote. "Best of all, this chat history stays connected to the document the next time you open it to help you pick right up where you left off."

But as new features come in, older ones are dropped. As The Verge reports, Microsoft is ditching support for the Skype TV app. Why? Most people are using Skype on mobile devices, not the TV.