For $5, You Can Buy the App that Brings the Tower of Babel Within Reach

For ages we've yearned for a day when we'd be able to speak to people who don't speak our language. Well, believe it or not, that day has come, with the appearance of Jibbigo ( www.jibbigo.com ), an App that can be used on any iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod) or Android product. And in my own case, it works on the original and outmoded model of the iPhone (I don't yet have a 4), at least for sentences that aren't too long and are translated one at a time.

The Jibbigo app costs $4.99 per language, and is available for translating English both into and back from Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Iraqi Arabic, Chinese, Tagalog, and Korean, each language possessing a 40,000-word vocabulary and costing $4.99 to download. (Until you get the full hang of it, just pay for and download one language.) It takes about 10 minutes for the downloading and installation to be complete.

To use the service, you hold down the red record button by the flag of the language you speak. This turns a broad adjacent rectangle into solid red. Once that rectangle appears in red, you keep holding the red button down (while the red rectangle is showing) and speak a brief sentence into the bottom of your mobile device. You then release the red recording button when done. Wait a few seconds, and -- lo and behold! -- not only does Jibbigo show you the written equivalent of what you've just spoken, both in English and the desired foreign language, but it then speaks back (and quite audibly) the sentence you've uttered both in English and in the desired foreign language.

My first successful sentence on Jibbigo: "I would like a room with private bath for three nights", which was first translated on the iPhone into a written "Quisiera una habitacion con baño privado para 3 noches", and then into a very clear voice saying the same in perfect Spanish. Will wonders never cease!

It might be noted at this point that Jibbigo works entirely on your mobile device and is not connected to any server. You therefore do not incur roaming charges or any other expense when you use it in another country.

On your first use of Jibbigo, you may have to try it a few times before you get the perfect "hang" of the device. But afterwards, you'll become quite proficient in using it. Jibbigo has not yet entered a science-fiction world of long and rapid conversations between people of different languages, but it's an excellent start -- and a vision of a world to come. Our children will wear a transmitter device around their neck enabling them to speak with (and be understood by) anyone on earth! Travel, of course, will then take on an even broader and more pleasant, more rewarding, dimension.