A new development in technology could make this problem a thing of the past. Developed by the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec), the new "speech-to-speech" translation tool will be able to automatically translate one spoken language into another.

"Just say what you want to the software and it will help you translate to the other language within a few seconds," said Chai Wutiwiwatchai, chief of Nectec's speech technology research section, who is overseeing the speech-technology development.

The beauty of this technology, according to Chai, is that it not only translates the words, but it can speak out the translated sentence to its audience.

"This will help people who speak different languages communicate better and will eliminate the language-barrier problem," he said.

Chai explained there are three technologies involved in the system - speech recognition, machine translation and speech synthesis.

Speech recognition recognises a voice, automatically converting it into text, while machine translation helps make automatic language translation. Speech synthesis, meanwhile, converts the text back into speech.

Chai said the three technologies have been integrated to develop the complete speech-to-speech technology.

The team has spent around five months on the first prototype, which supports English to Thai translation. As it's initially intended for use by tourists, the prototype covers around 450 tourism-related words.

"We know tourists visiting Thailand find it difficult to talk to Thai people. We hope the development of this technology will make it easier to communicate with us," he said.

However, the software is still at the first prototype stage with the team testing it to run on a PC. For real use, the software has to be designed for use with a more convenient, mobile device.

One idea being looked into is that a small piece of software will be embedded in a mobile phone. As a result, when people need speech translation, they will be able to call a centre and say the sentence they need translated into their mobile phone.

Within seconds, the translated version will be read out over the phone.

Chai said the technology could be developed as a new value-added service for mobile-phone operators. The centre hopes operators will adopt this technology for new services.

He said each operator would be able to link their network to Nectec's server for translation, with the result sent through their mobile network to customers. The entire process is expected to take just five seconds.

However, before it can be used on the market, Chai said some areas of the technology need more development. Speech recognition needs to be honed for use in specific tourism scenarios. This will enable the software to better recognise tourism-related sentences and give more accurate results. He added the team also plans to develop it to support translation into the spoken word.

"The translation software is designed to translate language into written words. For speech-to-speech translation, we need to make some adjustments to ensure the translated version comes out much closer to the way people normally speak," he said.

Meanwhile, the team also plans to develop Thai-to-English speech-to-speech translation. Research and development will start next year and a prototype of this version is expected to come out a year later.

Pongpen Sutharoj

The Nation