Language Problems? Problem Solved!
Posted by Maik Beckenbauer | Filed under Soft
The best apps for language wary travellers promise so much more now that you might even consider using them on a date – and that’s a lot to promise.
The current batch of translator apps has incorporated the latest iteration of voice recognition software that is so effective that conversations can be held in real time. No more fiddling with hardware, fine tuning software, typing in words, trying to pronounce strange sentences to only then find your new foreign friend exhausted and defeated at the effort of trying to understand.
Certainly there are dozens of language learning apps available to the traveller. The real question however is whether or not travellers even really need to be trying to learn a foreign language – a language that many will use only once before moving on to another destination with yet another language to have to conquer.
The best apps now however are developed with the understanding that modern travellers visit many countries frequently for short periods of time. This sort of traveller simply does not have the time to dedicate the full year it takes for an average learner to acquire the language skills to conduct even a basic conversation in another tongue.
Now however a growing number of app developers are coming to the rescue. One of the latest apps, SpeechTrans, promotes a translation product that bills itself as being able to facilitate conversations in real time between two people who speak different languages. As extraordinary a breakthrough as this seems, Speech Trans is not alone in its offering.
The Japanese firm NTT Docomo similarly offers a real time translation app, not only for person to person use but for phone use also. Google too is a player, and Android Market, and others behind them, each presenting their own vision of what the perfect translation product looks like.
Indeed it must be heartening for travellers to see their travel possibilities expanding ever further as developers continue to push the envelope, creating the very best apps that they can.
Image © fotografiedk – Fotolia.com
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