You’ve undoubtedly seen the little electronic dictionaries where you have to punch in a word with teeny-tiny keys and it gives you a translation. Some of those dictionaries are even talking dictionaries, where you can select a word and hit a key, and it will speak the word.

It’s time for some new technology. We need listening dictionaries.

I want a little hand-held device that will listen to my interlocutor, interpret what she says in English on-the-fly, then allow me to answer in English and the device would spit out a version in the other language.

Am I asking for too much? Yes. But I predict that in fewer than 5 years we could see a usable product like the one I’m describing. Voice recognition software is rapidly improving. Machine translation, while leaving a lot to be desired, is also improving. I’d say we could see a listening/talking dictionary in less than 5 years that would be a useful interpretation tool, adapting to individuals’ voice/dialect/vocabulary automatically.

For now I’ll keep dreaming. Learning languages is more fun anyway.

17 October 2006 7:05 pm
Cats: Language Learning, Technology
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