The biggest difficulty when one has a smattering of a foreign language is not that of coming out with the odd phrase in the local argot, it is understanding what the other person says back to you, and next year’s hot toy won’t help much with that: Advanced Products & Technologies Inc, Redmond, Washington is preparing to launch the Voice, a handheld computer about the size of a hardback book that will be able to recognise 10,000 English phrases and speak them out in French, German, Spanish or Italian; the $2,000 system will also require a $200 cartridge on which the user has to record a few choice messages so the thing can get its bearings; might be useful for monolingual hotel check-in and booking clerks who can phrase their questions so as to need only yes and no answers.
