There is an effect that mimics speech to speech under very specific conditions. It's useful, but it's not the same as speaking in and getting a translation out.

Question: "Can I talk into it and get the translation out? Some of your competitors claim they sell a product that can do this. In fact, it's the same model number you have."

Answer: Such a device does not exist. Our sticking to the facts on this issue causes us sometimes to lose sales to a competitor that is selling the same device but is apparently not very familiar with it. Maybe about the time the Enterprise makes its first stop at Planet Vulcan, such functionality will exist in a pocket sized device, and it won't cost more than, say, a median home in Boston.

Just to provide the electric power for the required processor resources means you'd need to haul around a battery that weighs more than your entire family, or you'd need a very, very long extension cord. For a more detailed answer, click here.

Why, then, are there so many claims that such a device exists? Because of a feature called speech recognition. This does allow you to speak into the device and get a translation, but you have to speak an exact phrase that is already in the device. An apple isn't an orange, even if they have some similarities.

Let's look at this more, using the iTravl pocket translator as an example (the 900 pocket translator is similar).

An impressive use for speech recognition is in the iTravl Language Teacher program, so let's look at that and then we'll move on to speech recognition and translation.

Speech Recognition in Language Teacher

The iTravl uses speech recognition in clever, useful ways in its Language Teacher program.

For example, you are in Language Teacher learning words in the other language. It will show you the word and pronounce it. You then pronounce the word yourself. Language Teacher will grade your pronunciation, telling you things like, "Try again,' "Not quite," "Not bad," or "Excellent." You'll see a graphical comparison, as well. Way, way cool.

But that's not all. After you learn a few words, you'll be presented with an image. Above it will be the words you just learned. Now you have to pronounce the word that describes the image. And this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg in describing what the iTravl does with speech recognition.

Speech Recognition for Translating

You may have seen a demonstration like the one in this 8-minute video and gotten the impression that the device does "speech to speech" translation. That wasn't the message in that video. What it shows is the ability to look up phrases via voice input.

In short, there is no such thing as a "voice to voice" or "speech to speech" translator on the market. The technology for such a thing in a pocket-sized device that doesn't run on a pair of car batteries or super-long extension cord just doesn't exist.

So, why are people talking into these devices in the videos and live demonstrations? Well, we have sold these devices to police officers, social workers, and others who have taken the time to become familiar with the phrasebook and have a fair idea of what's in it. They can just say the phrase they want and the device will pull up the translation.

It doesn't take long to have this ability, primarily because of how the phrases are organized. You can look through the corresponding phrasebook section before going out with a device in a particular situation (e.g. to the bank). Knowing the kind of phrases (e.g. "Where is the nearest bank?") will allow you to say the ones that are in the device.

To many people, this is "speech-to-speech translation." But, technically, it's not. It's using the audio phrasebook feature (provided by the Ectaco 800, 850 and iTRAVL pocket translators) to use pre-translated speech for specific situations. The kicker here is you have 14,000 phrases covering a wide range of typical situations.

The situations include  Basics, Traveling, Hotel, Local Transport, Sightseeing, Bank, Communication Means, In the Restaurant, Food/Drinks, Shopping, Repairs/Laundry, Sport/Leisure, Health/Drugstore, and Beauty Care.

If we're talking about being able to pull up canned phrases that fit specific situations, then, yes, there is "speech to speech translation." But it isn't simply talking into the device and then whatever you said gets translated.

Translation is a complex endeavor, and doing it on the fly in a portable machine is beyond current capabilities. There are many reasons for this, and to understand them you merely have to be present when a human interpreter goes back and forth between two parties. Now imagine that with a machine that can't make eye contact with people and two or three people talking at the same time.

So, yes, you can speak specific phrases into a device and get a translation out. The unit will try to match what you said to what's in its internal database. In every implementation today, that's the phrasebook: you have to exactly match what's in the phrasebook. It actually does work, as demonstrated in this 8-minute video.

The device does not transcribe what you said to the screen. Instead, it looks up what its program says matches what you said. Using text entry solves that problem (text entry is very easy with the latest generation of iTravl).


Voice output for Text Translation

You don't have to study foreign language grammar, conjugate verbs or search for coherent words anymore. Now you can just type any sentence or full text in a handheld device and get its translation instantly. From English to Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Chinese languages and back to English! (Those are the available languages with that feature).

Moreover, by pressing one button, you can hear the translated text pronounced aloud correctly in the targeted language (with the text to speech synthesized voice).  

Fact #1: You cannot simply speak free-form into a translator and have a translation come out. That's not how it works. You first navigate to the general category (easy to do), and then speak a phrase that is in that category.

Fact #2: Speech recognition is not appropriate for high noise environments, because the background noise will create problems. It works just fine in environments where the background noise doesn't require a person to speak loudly to be heard (meaning a non-earplug zone, if you're talking about a factory). If you can understand that before buying one of these devices, then you will be a very happy owner.

Yes, it sounds like we're underselling this feature. In a sense, we are. The point here is to let you know not to assume the device does on the fly translation or will always do a perfect job of speech-based lookup. It has to contend with all kinds of nuances, such as diction errors, background noise, varying rates of speech and pitch, accents, and other obstacles. It does this well, but not perfectly. The iTRAVL devices allow to create your user profile, where you can quickly train the iTRAVL device to recognize your personal voice even better.

Counterclaim: "But I saw this demonstrated! A guy spoke into the device and got the translation out." No, what you saw was not speech to speech translation. What you saw was a use of the phrasebook lookup function. That person doing the demonstration knew exactly what phrases to say. As noted, this feature works well for many situations. But it is not a "free form" translation on the fly.

Perspective: Before these electronic devices were available, people used paper pocket dictionaries  (successfully, for decades). These typically had a couple hundred words and a few dozen phrases. The electronic ones were doing 20,000 words and 2,000 phrases about a decade ago. The current generation of devices have, in many cases, over 1 million words in some language pairs (as with Chinese). They all have 14,000 phrases per language. So, a lot less gesturing and a lot more actual communication with a lot less frustration.

To do free-form speech to speech translation would require an entirely new design philosophy, plus computing power surpassing what you have on your desktop. You'd need to carry around an enormous battery (it would weigh more than your entire family) or a very, very long extension cord. Thus, all pocket devices use the table model described previously. They are far more capable than their paper predecessors, and people used those paper ones successfully for many decades.

The average American owns a passenger car that won't do the quarter mile in 10 seconds and can't hit 200 MPH. As much as we admire those supercars and would like the speed, the cars we have get us where we're going and are much better than walking when we need to go far. Plus, they cost about a tenth of what a super car costs to purchase and are far less of a headache and expense to own and maintain. The same logic applies to an electronic translation device.

Voice output

Most translation devices today have voice output. This feature is normally redundant for communication, because the other person is reading the translation on the screen anyhow. But proves useful in many situations.

Many people assume the presence of voice output with speech input means all you have to do is talk into the device and out comes a perfect translation. Then the other person talks into the device. But this assumption is wrong.

You can use voice output for purposes such as:

• When you want minimal distractions with the screen.
• When you don't want to hand the other person your device.
• When the sunlight or other conditions make the screen hard to read.
• You want to learn pronunciation (use the headset or earbuds).

Of course, you would not want to use the voice output when, for example,

• You want privacy.
• It's too noisy to hear clearly.
• You are both using the screen anyhow.

Not all Russian translator models have full text translation, but they do have other features. For people on a really, really tight budget foregoing the full text translation feature may be the way to go. Generally, you are better off buying a Russian translator with this feature. And that means an Ectaco 900 or iTravl translator.

Translation tools explained

• This feature allows you to type in your own random sentence. It's also called sentence translation.
• You can type on the virtual keyboard.
• The other person can type on the virtual keyboard, in his/her own characters.
• This feature isn't available for every language pair. Look that the specs chart for the language pair you are interested in.

Question: "Does the full text translation tend to be too confusing to be useful?"

Answer: Not at all. You simply write concise sentences.

For example, you might normally say, "Do you think you might want to go to the waterfront with me this evening, maybe a little after supper?"

With FTT, you might type in, "Go to waterfront?" Then you might point to your watch and hold up 6 fingers for the time. It takes only seconds to type that.

The other person might respond by nodding, by holding up fingers for a different time, or by typing in a message. For example, "Go to museum." In response to your disappointed look, "Waterfront dangerous in evening."

Dictionary (works in both directions)

• Advanced word recognition allows you to find a word just by typing the first few letters.
• MorphoFinder helps you find source words for English past participles, gerunds, and plural forms.
• The "Slang lock" function allows you to toggle between "include" or "exclude" (lock in/lock out) slang in the dictionaries.
• Vector Ultima spell-checker.
• English phonetic transcription.
• The WordNet Princeton edition dictionary of modern English has over 70,000 head words and detailed explanations.

The talking 39-language Picture Dictionary has real human voice pronunciation for all words.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Either person can look up a word and show the other person a pictorial representation. It's simple, quick, and clear.

• The audio phrasebook was recorded with professional native narrators. Consequently, it delivers superb voice output.
• The "You may hear" function helps another person select an answer from a list of canned answers. For instance, having picked the topic "In a restaurant," you choose a phrase. The waiter wants to reply to that phrase. You then select the "You may hear" option listed in the restaurant category (there is such an option in each category). The waiter can select the answer from the list provided.
• A "phrase" is usually a complete sentence. It's called a "phrase" out of tradition.

This handy, easy to use feature is a word substitution tool for existing phrases in the phrasebook. You don't actually "build sentences" with it. Here's how you use Sentence Builder:

• Choose a phrase.
• Tap on a hyperlinked word in the phrase. This brings up a short list.
• Tap a word from the list to replace the hyperlinked word with the one you tapped

• Language Teacher  (select models only, see specs table).
• Mobile Infotainment System (select models only, see specs table).
• Linguistic Crossword.
• Linguistic Flashcards.

Let's look at these, taking the iTravl pocket translator as an example (the 900-series pocket translator  is similar):

Language Teacher

The interactive language teacher system is a powerful tool for learning other languages. It can listen to you and tell you how well you pronounce something in another language. When you repeat the item in the foreign language, the iTravl:

• Compares your pronunciation to the correct one.
• Shows you a "how you did" graphic.
• Repeats your pronunciation aloud.
• Repeats the correct pronunciation aloud.

• Spelling.
• Translation.
• Transcription.
• Picture for visualization.
• Diagram of the correct pronunciation.

On the main screen, you'll see "Learn Language Basics in 4 Steps." This tool takes you through each of those steps, and provides a structured approach so you don't get lost or confused. This is available in most iTravl language sets, but not all. See the Specifications area (above). Here are five screen shots. The first one is the main menu. We provide a screenshot, in sequence, for each item on that menu.

Mobile Infotainment System

This is a mobile implementation of Language Teacher, designed for voice operation. You wear a headset microphone to do this. It's very similar to the Language Teacher, but is hands-free. If you're driving with a passenger, your passenger can learn a language rather than distracting you. Or, you could use this system yourself while your vehicle isn't moving and just hit Pause when it's time to drive again.

This module utilizes hands-free, eye-free technology originally developed by Ectaco for the U.S. Army. The user can mount the iTravl on the windshield or dashboard in the car. After connecting the over-the-head microphone to the iTRAVL, you just follow the spoken prompts from the device.

You listen to the words and phrases iTRAVL says and repeat them. The speech analyzing software process your speech and grades it as Good, Satisfactory, or Unsatisfactory and tells you how well you did.

The current course consists of 7 topics: Time, Hotel, Restaurant, Foodstuffs, Transport, Shopping, and General Phrases. The have various subtopics.

We provide an Automobile Accessory Pack to facilitate use of this program, though you can use the program with just a headset and car charger.

Note: This feature is not on all iTravls (which are differentiated by their language set). See the specifications chart to determine if it's on the model you are considering.

Games: Linguistic Crossword and Linguistic Flashcards

In the iTravl manual, you will see five games listed, but the iTravl menu shows only two. What's up with that? Well, there actually are five. One is Linguistic Crossword, and the other four are variations of flashcard games so you access them from "Linguistic Flashcards."

The original games were pretty useless for English speakers. Ectaco has completely revamped these, and now they are engaging, entertaining, and helpful (euphemistically speaking, that is--if we admit to how addictive they are, your significant other might nix the purchase and we can't have that).

In Linguistic Crossword, you have a crossword puzzle. It has user options to help you, if you get stuck. These include "Reveal word," Show letter," "say English word," Say clue." It's really fun, and it helps you learn new words in the target language.

In Linguistic Flashcards, you can select from four different games:

1. Hangman. You spell the translation, and are allowed 8 attempts. The program draws a gallows on your first miss, and it gets worse from there.
2. Pockets. As you get the translation of each word correct, you move it from one pocket to another.
3. Translation test. A multiple choice approach.
4. Spell. Similar to Flashcards, but you have to spell the translation correctly. This one is a bit backwards, as it should have you spell the source word rather than the translation. But it still forces you to translate into English.