As someone who has used so called speech to text programs, and then spent more time correcting the output than it would have taken to type it in the first place, I have one thing to say about accurate machine translation, dont believe it until you see it.

If a computer can't even manage to correctly translate speech to text in the same language then what hope of even remotely accurately translating into different languages.

Meanwhile there are several ways to communicate with people using different languages:
- Learn their language. Good luck with that. Even the most accomplished polyglot has no hope of becoming native speaker fluent in more than a few languages.
-Hire an interpreter. Good luck with that. The European parliament spends inordinate amounts of money doing just that and still has only a few languages in which most business is discussed.
-Expect everyone to learn your language. Good luck with that. Most lack the time, and motivation.
- Learn one second language that people from all language groups can learn more easily than any natural language. Hmmm, as I recall someone has already devised just such a language, Esperanto.

-Expect everyone to learn your language. Good luck with that. Most lack the time, and motivation.

But this argument also applies to Esperanto.

UK residents were treated last night to a review of three apps for mobile translation on the Gadget Show (channel 5 on UK TV). One of these received four G's.

And the reviewer commented on how much better the translations were since their last review on the show a couple of years previously.

I told you !!

sudanglo:UK residents were treated last night to a review of three apps for mobile translation on the Gadget Show (channel 5 on UK TV). One of these received four G's.

And the reviewer commented on how much better the translations were since their last review on the show a couple of years previously.

I told you !!

Sorry, but what exactly does four G's mean? Is it like four stars or something?

Are most of the reviewers bilingual, or are they translating from X into English? I have used Google translate quite a lot for EO and Spanish and I catch little errors all the time (and I'm not particularly advanced at Spanish). I find that the translation to English is usually much more accurate.