Could these become a thing of the past? Photograph: Graham Turner
Ever asked somebody on holiday for a plate of roast chicken, when you really meant to woo them with sweet nothings? Or perhaps vice versa? Negotiating foreign languages can be difficult, but embarrassing gaffes like these could soon be a thing of the past. New Scientist magazine has reported that a new generation of hi-tech translators is being tested by those beacons of bridge-building goodwill, the US military in Iraq, to save you from ever telling somebody that they look like a table leg again.
Whereas previous translation gadgets such as the Phraselator, used by American troops in Afghanistan, churned phrases into a written format, the new technology has leapt into the realm of the spoken word. All you have to do is speak into a device, and it will translate from your mother tongue into a foreign language and back again, all in real-time.
SRI International, which is one of the developers behind the program, insists the technology won't replace interpreters in war zones, but will come in handy in tricky situations, so its use by tourists ordering hamburgers in Paris seems like a natural progression. The technology could also be used in mobile camera phones to interpret road signs, and could even accompany masterpieces such as Cinema Paradiso, replacing the confusing musicality of Italian with the soothing tones of a computer-generated voice.
But isn't fumbling around a foreign language part of the fun for the humble traveller? Aren't the best holiday finds often the accidental ones? And in any case, doesn't speaking s-l-o-w-l-y and LOUDLY work just fine? Well, therein could lie the computer translator's raison d'être.
Still, as any hacker will tell you, no computer is infallible. Who knows what wicked word swaps could be inserted? Perhaps you could find yourself dining on a dish of duck feathers drizzled in dessert wine after all. Just don't say that you weren't warned.
