Don’t know the language? Let your smartphone do the talking for you

The next time you travel to Kerala for vacation and find it difficult to converse with the local auto-rickshaw drivers there, you can take the help of your smartphone to overcome the language barrie

Pune-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is working on a unique software which will make your travelling easy if you are travelling to a state where the local language is beyond your grasp.

The software can be installed in smartphones where if one speaks in a particular language, the application will translate the message to English which can then be communicated to the ‘target’ language.

A team of 50 developers are working under the guidance Dr Hemant Darbari, executive director of C-DAC.

“With the use of the artificial intelligence, we are trying to break the language barrier by inventing tools like speech recognition system. So far, we have created a system which can translate the English text or speech into Hindi,” said Darbari, adding that 80-90 per cent success has been received in this regard.

He added that they are aiming to incorporate atleast five languages like Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi and Malayalam.

However, research needs to be done as it has to be viewed in the context of the environment, socio-economic and demographical conditions and more importantly, the accent and grammar of the particular language.

The software is currently a window-based application. Once, it reaches to the desired perfection, then it will be made to work on cloud computing. “Once the research is done, it will be available for the mobile application. But, it will take sometime,” he said. C-DAC has already developed an application called ‘Shrutlekhan’.

“Shrutlekhan is a Hindi speech recognition tool in which one can write or speak in English and it will be translated to Hindi,” he said. C-DAC also intends to use the technology in the fields of health and tourism as with this voice and text-based application, patients can speak in their own language and the doctor can hear it in Hindi, English or three other regional languages.