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It almost sounds too good to be true, but apparently Microsoft’s developed the holy grail for Brits abroad — a piece of software that learns your voice and uses it to speak in a language you simply can’t.
Working a bit like a one-way Babel Fish, or even a primitive version of Star Trek’s universal translator, the new program reads out text in another language using a profile of your own voice. It’ll do speech recognition too, so you can literally speak into the thing and have it speak back to you, or the confused person you’re trying to talk to in increasingly loud and slow English, in any language you choose while still sounding recognisably like you.
It’s being developed by Microsoft Research Asia, and was recently demonstrated in Redmond with impressive results. At the moment the system needs about an hour of voice training to develop a model of your voice, but once that’s done it’ll spit things out in any one of 26 languages including Mandarin, Spanish and Italian.
As a language-challenged monolingual Englishman, I can safely say this would be truly awesome when visiting non-native English speaking countries. The number of times I’ve massacred another language in an attempt to simply get a pint a beer makes me shudder. Turn this into a phone app and you’ll have an instant communicator. It’d be better if it could also translate what they’re saying to you on the fly, but you’ve got to start somewhere, right? [Technology Review]
Awesome news
Got to hand it to Microsoft’s R&D they come out with some really cool stuff. Hope this one comes to the market 
How does this differ from say Google Translate on Android, where I can talk into it, and it translates a phrase into a foreign language that it then speaks?
Sounds the same to me.
It speaks with your voice, not a standard computer synthesised voice. That’s the real difference — it actually sounds recognisably like you, so it’s like you’re speaking to them rather than a computer.
BTW, have you ever used it abroad? It must use a decent chunk of data.
It’s not that bad, I had a 20MB allowance abroad and with lots of browsing (Opera Mini) and emails and stuff, and using Google Goggles to translate text and stuff, I never went over in a week.
Just one correction Sam “for Brits abroad” you can add Brits abroad or in London.
He he, yeah, I know what you mean man
This is true, you can run in to all sorts of foreigners in London. I was involved in a conversation there recently with a Brazilian, a South African and an Australian
And I bet none of them spoke English
Just kidding guys!
On a more serious note I bet they are extremely intellingent and interesting people.
Indeed they were, charming and good looking too
I expect the main issue with this will be the same as with Google Translate and that is of data use.
Great if you’re in a Wi-Fi area but forget about using it in a 3G or less area….it’s painful!
It has to be internet free to work. Can you imagine the roaming charges to use something like this abroad? You would be better off hiring a private translator.
No doubt Apple will be sueing because it talks.
“I can only translate your speech into Spanish if you’re talking in US English”
ha! what’s gonna happen when the spanish waiter is trying to take your food order and all you’re saying is “I’m really sorry, but I can’t take any requests right now.”