Google has announced their intention to bring real time translation to your smartphone during phone calls.
This could really impact on the need to learn another language, with the phone doing it all for you then there isnt going to be the need to know it yourself.
It is based on Google’s existing software which automatically converts documents into a different language, this would use voice recognition in order to translate real time speech. This amazing technology could be with us in just a couple of years.
Probably best known for its Internet search engine, Google launched its first mobile phone last month the Google Nexus One, the Nexus One was intended to be a rival for Apple’s iPhone, it already has voice recognition but combining this with automatic translation promises to be something that will be truly amazing. Source – dailymail.co.uk
Good luck to Google with their planned translator phone. I think they have underestimasted the complications they face!
My monety is on a non-technological solution – Esperanto.
As a professional literary translator, I can tell they have completely misunderstood the nature of human language. It is not very logical (perfectly logical languages may be good enough for computers, but not for people – goodbye, Loglan!), and it’s basic unit is not the word but the phrase; and constructing a complete list of phrases just isn’t possible. Esperanto seems to have found the best balance in so far between logics and humanity.
If you’ve ever tried to read a google-translated document, or tried to read anything its speech recognition thinks you said, you’re probably snickering to yourself at the idea of a confluence of the two.
As an aside: Esperanto? Really? I’m pretty sure that died in the 60s, shortly after it was recognized by UNESCO.