Lexifone App: Cheap Translations, But No Replacement for Humans Associated Press
go to original June 13, 2013

How to use Lexifone during a call (Lexifone)

An Israeli startup says it has come up with a way to overcome language barriers when conducting international business: an automated service that provides quick translations between English and seven other languages with nothing more than a telephone.

Lexifone allows people to get translations without paying hundreds of dollars for human interpreters. The service translates spoken conversations in real time, which Lexifone says is an improvement over free, Web-based services that are typically limited to typing in text.

... Although a phone-based service similar to Lexifone has been offered since November by NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest cellphone carrier, that service works only with Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Lexifone translates between English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Russian and Mandarin. The service costs 15 to 40 cents a minute.

Lexifone works by having computers listen in on conversations. When Mary says something in Spanish, for instance, Lexifone runs that through four separate translation programs to analyze what’s being said and determine the best translation. Bob, who already has heard the remarks from Mary in Spanish, then hears the English, Italian or Mandarin translation from the service in a computer-generated voice. The process is reversed when Bob replies on the phone line.

... But how will conversations via Lexifone be received in Moscow or Beijing? Tests conducted by AP reporters in Mexico, France, Israel, China and the US show that Lexifone is still far from delivering the quick and seamless translations it advertises. Using the service proved frustrating, both in the quality of translations and the length of time it took to complete phone calls.

Read the rest at The Times of Israel

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