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Old March 21 2012, 04:17 PM   #10
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Location: Mannheim, Germany
Re: Universal Translator a reality?

Well.. the universal translator has some huge logic flaws but a few months ago i saw a report on TV where some guy had a smartphone (don't know if it was Android or iPhone) and tried to strike up a conversation with foreigners.

He spoke into it and a short while later a computer voice spoke the translation.. worked pretty well for French and Spanish, soso for Turkish and Arabic and mostly had problems with Mandarin Chinese.

However fact was that with that app a person could do basic day to day life in a foreign country, for example as a tourist gone shopping or asking for something in the local language.

A few years ago such a software was unthinkable and was pretty rudimentary.. who knows how it will work 10 years from now?
I can see this working quite well for day to day language but may have problems with more specialized words or dialects but it could be a huge help in foreign countries.
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