New Japanese Mobile Technology : NTT Docomo's "Hanashite Honyaku" automatic voice translation app.

Nowadays, most mobile applications have been designed for local people. An effort of translation, however, can be justified for some of them, especially those that may be useful to tourists. This article emphasize how new innovative mobile application will facilitate life of business and leisure tourists.

Indeed, the rise of smartphones gives rise to a large number of innovations designed to overcome language barriers. This includes translation of texts and an exiting innovation for travellers: almost-instantaneous speech translation.

For this revolutionary automatic voice translation mobile application to be successful, three types of technology requirements are needed:

-        Voice recognition (conversion of voice into text)

-        Instant translation (text-to-text)

-         Speech synthesis (text to speech)

Many companies are working on developing instant language translation application.

Since 2008, Google has developed a mobile web version of its Google Translate, and is now converted into a mobile application “Mobile Translate”. The application captures and records the speech of a person, and traduces it in a chosen language.   A new text appears so that it can be read by the user on the screen or heard directly on the phone. It can translate texts in 50 languages ​​but recognizes 15 languages ​​thanks to the voice recognition technology.

Other companies have been working on slightly similar technologic innovations such as Samsung (Korea),  AT&T (United States), Microsoft Research, etc.

The most relevant innovation appears to be the one developed by the Japanese operator NTT Docomo. The two following application are available since November, 1^st 2012:

Source: SLEETHERZ Android News

-        An instant translator of written texts app:

A mobile application « Utushite Hon'yaku » can instantly translate texts in Japanese by viewing the translated text through the phone's camera. The application interprets real-time image captured by the camera and converts it directly to the screen on the principle of augmented reality applications. This system allows you to translate short texts, such as urban signage, and superimposes the translation to the original text on the screen.  A tourist is lost in front of a menu written in Japanese? Just orient the smartphone's screen towards the text to see it instantly translated into other available languages.

-        An automatic voice translation app:

This application « Hanashite Hon’yaku » is useful to translate a conversation between two people who do not speak the same language (one of which must be Japanese) either face-to-face or by talking on the phone. One can speak Japanese and the conversation will be automatically translated into English, Chinese or Korean for the caller. The answers of the caller will be translated into Japanese. The time between the original voice and computer translation is most of the time, less than a second or two. The application can also convert the oral words into written words and identify the related meanings. NTT Docomo ‘s service translation of voice to text has later on in 2012, been available between the Japanese and the French, German, Spanish, Indonesian, Italian, Portuguese and Thai speaking individuals.

But what are the limits of these revolutionary instant translator applications?

People who tasted the application state that result are far from being perfect from the point of view of grammar and syntax, but they are clear enough to be understood by its interlocutor.

Finally, 21 out of the 30 European languages that are currently studied are threatened because of a lack of technological support in the fields of instant translation, oral interfaces, textual analysis and the availability of resources in the languages ​​considered. Indeed, only English is currently presented as having a "good support" followed by languages ​​like German, Spanish, French, Italian and Dutch who have an "average support". Thus, researchers talk about a risk of "digital extinction" for 21 European languages.

To conclude, guessing these mobile services are going to keep improving: Imagine one can simply be travelling and do business without the requirement to speak the language of the country or of the company ‘interlocutors, he is visiting? In the context of the tourism & travel industry, will the need to speak foreign languages become less important in the future, than nowadays?

Julie Delattre &  Justine Audouin

Sources:

http://www.lefigaro.fr/hightech/2012/10/23/01007-20121023ARTFIG00478-la-traduction-en-direct-des-conversations-devient-realite.php

http://www.proximamobile.fr/article/les-perspectives-du-multilinguisme-et-de-la-traduction-sur-mobile