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Chat translation apps have come a long way from the days of manually inputting words and almost every day we can find a reason to use these innovative applications. Several chat translation applications that come to mind are: Jibbigo Voice Translator, SpeechTrans, Google (News - Alert) Translate and Word Lens.

Jibbigo

This self-contained speech-to-speech translation app allows you to talk in one language as it talks back in the other. The chat translation app has over 40,000 words, dictionary included, no data roaming charges or connection necessary and outputs your voice using SVOX speech synthesis technology.

"The app works well in tourist or travel situations and it is useful in text translations. You simply enter the text and the app processes it the same way. We used the apps in several Mexican and Japanese restaurants in the Houston area, successfully carrying on conversations with the wait staff,” a review by CultofMac.com stated.

Jibbigo is available in nine different language pairs on iTunes and the Android (News - Alert) Market for $4.99.

Speech Trans

SpeechTrans is a speech-to-speech translator with bi-directional speech recognition and translation capabilities. This chat translation app has voice recognition provided by Nuance, a speech technology company, and it allows users to dictate status updates directly to their social networking applications or send emails.

The chat translation tool has 99 percent speech recognition accuracy and is available on iTunes and the Android Market for $14.99.

Google Translate

Google first introduced their chat translation app in 2008 when they launched a HTML5 web app for iPhone (News - Alert) users. Although Google Translate can still have a tendency to be too literal in its translation, the chat translation app has come a long way.

Google Translate is a free chat translation app for Apple (News - Alert) devices and handles text in 63 languages, voice input in 17 languages and text-to-speech in 24 languages, as reported by Travel Kit.

Word Lens

Among the other chat translation apps that feature speech-to-speech recognition or text-to-speech, Word Lens is different in the fact that it translates printed words through a picture.

For example, say you are in France and there is a danger sign by the beach, but you don’t what it reads. To find out, simply take a picture of the sign and the chat translation app will show the picture back, but with the words replaced in the language desired.

The application actually matches font and color of the original wording and mimics it in the new picture; pretty incredible. However, CNET reviewer Rich Trenholm tried the chat translation app and said you have to hold the phone very steady when taking the picture. If you don’t, the app will “constantly readjust itself, flicking between the original and translated text.”

Word Lens is free to download on iTunes, but translation apps are $9.99 each.

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