Jajah Babel
I know many of you are familiar with Skype. Skype is software that allows you to make very inexpensive calls to landlines or cell phones from your computer. We used it to call family while we were in China last September and it worked like a charm.
There is another popular, although lesser known, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service provider called Jajah. Jajah has released a new English/Chinese translation service called Jajah Babel just in time for the Olympic Games. The service, which was developed in conjunction with IBM, allows users to call a free number to get a near-instant translation of spoken sentences. The service isn’t meant for voice calls abroad - instead, it’s a handheld translator. After speaking your message into the phone, you hand it to the person you’re speaking with, and the phone spits out the translated message.
I tried it myself by dialing and asking the question, “Hello. Where is the nearest bathroom?” The translation from English to Chinese sounded a little bit awkward but then what do I know? I don’t speak Chinese.
