Google working on speech translation for phones

(Credit: Gizmodo)

Google already runs a successful online translator, Google Translate, but they've got far-loftier ideas than simply converting the written word. They want to translate languages spoken over the phone, according to their head of translation services.

Speaking to The Times, Franz Och, Google's head of translation services, said:

"We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible and work reasonably well in a few years' time.

Clearly, for it to work smoothly, you need a combination of high-accuracy machine translation and high-accuracy voice recognition, and that's what we're working on.

If you look at the progress in machine translation and corresponding advances in voice recognition, there has been huge progress recently."

It's not really clear as to whether Google wants to translate a phone conversation, or conversation around you (for example, ordering food in a Japanese restaurant). If it's the former, I'm unsure as to whether I'd actually use the software, although booking hotels in other countries might be one example.

But then, when everything's done online these days--and effective online translation services like Google Translate and Babel Fish exist--Google might find that by the time they launch translation software on a phone (presumably Android), it's too late and everyone can speak English by then anyway. I hope that's not the case, though.

See also: At a loss for words? Google offers search by sight

This story originally appeared on Gizmodo.

Key requirement would be to know which language should be translated into which other language. And that info should be transmitted automatically.

[loose_screw]

Awesome. Go Google!

[atish505]

Speech to text on Nexus One sucks.

[johnfrei]

You should check out Trippo, they use Nuance (maker of Dragon Naturally Speaking software)

[ferricoxide]

I use Google voice. I like the *idea* of the voicemail transcription service, but, in practice, it's usually rather laughable. To me, until they can get THAT worked out, they should maybe leave the translator idea just sit.

[Ebraheem]

That's the whole point. They're testing it first in Google Voice voicemail. When that becomes of acceptable quality, they'll put the technology in other products.

[rajthakurgzb]

?? ???????? ?????? ???????? ??????? ??? ?? ????? ?? ?????? ?? ???????? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?????? 2003 ??? ??????? ?? ??????? ?? ?? ????? ??? ????? ???? ???? ??? ????? ????? ??? ???? ?????? ???????? ??!

[Brian_Barker]

Google's "Babel Fish" translator will in never solve the language problem. Not only does it discriminate against anyone who cannot afford a mobile phone, but against minority language groups as well.

There are 6,800 languages worldwide, not fifty-two !

Moreover, if I met a native in Borneo, and he said to me in Hakka "I've lost my mobile phone" how would I understand him :) And how many starving Africans can afford a mobile phone !

As English loses its economic power, the answer is not for us to move to Mandarin Chinese, but to Esperanto which puts all speakers on an equal footing.

Have a look at http://www.lernu.net or http://www.esperanto.net

[jayydubb]

I agree with everything you're saying, up until the point you suggested Esperanto as the solution. While that would be a wonderful idea in an ideal world, there are some distinct disadvantages. First, language and culture cannot be separated. By switching to Esperanto, a contrived language, all vestiges of unique culture would be in danger of being lost. Secondly, in order to learn a language, most people have to be immersed, or at least have a very large sample to be exposed to. This doesn't exist. Statistics show that 80% of stored language on the web is in English. While I'm not an Anglophile, I'm certainly practical. There are now more non-native speakers of English than native speakers. Stick with English as a second language and spare us the headache of "learning" Esperanto.

[johnfrei]

3 contenders

Jibbigo http://www.jibbigo.com/website/index.php
Trippo http://www.cellictica.com/
Speechtrans http://www.speechtrans.com/