instant translation windows for tourists in train stations and airports

Japan now welcomes three million foreign visitors per month. And this creates a bit of confusion with a population that has a very low level of foreign language. To try to facilitate exchanges, a Japanese company is now installing instant translation windows. We are starting to see this new technology in major stations in Tokyo. These are transparent windows 40 centimeters high by 60 centimeters wide. They are placed in front of the counters where you buy your train ticket or bus card.

On each side of the window there are small microphones and two tablets where you can select your language. You arrive, you press “French” and you start speaking in French to the ticket seller on the other side of the road. And what you say appears live in white letters on the window, a bit like comic book bubbles. It’s in French on your side and in Japanese on the employee’s side. He reads your question and answers you the same way. He speaks in Japanese and the answer appears in white letters in French. It is extremely fluid and the translation is often very accurate.

This allows for a direct visual exchange between people. You’re not hunched over your phone waiting for a response. The company that developed this solution is called Toppan, which explains that it offers an almost perfect translation, because the system was developed directly in Japanese. This is the difference with other translation systems which are often built on an English base.
That is, if you request a French to Japanese translation from a free app on your phone, most systems will translate Japanese to English, then English to French, so there is more errors. There, the translation window was developed to directly understand 12 languages ​​(English, French, Chinese, Korean and even Thai).

And there is a big demand for these windows in Japan, because some cities in the country are a little overwhelmed by tourists. The number of visitors has increased 2.5 times in less than ten years. The Japanese currency, the yen, collapsed against other currencies and thus Japan became an affordable destination for foreigners. And this massive arrival is somewhat destabilizing for employees in the service sector who are not comfortable with foreign languages. The level of English tends to decline in Japan. In the list of non-English speaking countries that speak English best, Japan fell to 87th place out of 113 countries. For comparison, France is 43rd in this ranking.