Still, some of his fellow travelers preferred he not use ili around them.After a 10 minute walk from Takeshita street, we ended up at Meiji Shrine. Jamal is an audio nerd, and with a little research learned that the device's voice is within the normal range for a female. Plenty of folks thought it sounded just fine, but others found the "shrill little anime girl" voice off-putting or even embarrassing. Even the rest of us (who initially scoffed at the idea of a pocket translator, not to mention an offline one □) were impressed by ili's accuracy when it came to simple sentences.įinally, one more thing to know: ili's synthesized voice might irritate some people. That being said, ili's manufacturer recommends short phrases, and for those it worked surprisingly well. When he used them, ili seemed to struggle with the translation speed-you can imagine both people waiting awkwardly for the device to spit out the Japanese phrase. He also noted that longer phrases were a little more problematic. It's a small white rectangle with a front-facing mic, back-facing speaker, and status light. The device itself has a minimalist design. On the other hand, ili came in handy in quieter situations, like when he was looking for souvenirs for his family, or when a Delta security agent asked him confusing questions as he was checking in at Narita airport. If he was somewhere that was noisier, like a bar or club, using it became a hassle, and he usually didn't bother. Jamal explained that Japanese people who interacted with ili generally understood what the device was saying. When you're finished, press the power button on the side to turn it off. In a loud room or a busy train station, the mic will pick up extra sounds and noises, so it's nice to be able to double-check. This is useful when the other person is confused or doesn't quite hear you. You can check what the ili heard you say with the English button on the side, just below the power button. If the person you're speaking with needs the phrase repeated, press the big button again. The translation "speaks" from the back-facing speaker. Then press and hold the same button, and say something-preferably a simple travel phrase. To turn it on, just press the large button at the top (or the small power button on the side). It feels sturdy-even though Jamal said he dropped it a couple of times, the ili continued to look and function just fine. It has three function buttons: one to turn it on and off, one that repeats the captured phrase, and one you hold down for translation. Made of plastic with a matte finish, the device itself has a minimalist design. It also allows the speakers to have eye contact throughout the exchange-a nice touch. In theory, this allows the conversation to flow more quickly with shorter, more meaningful interactions. Ili is purposefully intended to enable travelers' normal everyday questions/answers and not to be a distraction itself. To be fair, though, its biggest advantage is that you don't need an Internet connection to use it. The ili can translate English into three languages: Japanese, Mandarin, and Spanish-far fewer than Pocketalk's sixty-three. Keep in mind, however, that because the market is very small, and not very well known, that "most popular" could change at any moment. Apparently, ili is one of the most popular one-way language translation devices on the market today. Go nuts! (Buying one would have set him back $199.)īefore our trip, we did a little research. We gave it to him, and told him to try it out. We said sure and, because we were about to travel to Japan for a company retreat, agreed to hand off the ili to Jamal, one of our non-Japanese-speaking staff. (Just a reminder that in this series we only focused on the translator devices' English-to- Japanese functionality if you use one for other languages, your experience may be different.) Some ili Background InformationĪ few months ago we were contacted by a representative from ili, who wanted to send us one of its translators for review. These little pocket translators can be useful. As Japanophiles and Japanese language teachers ourselves, we still think the best way to learn Japanese is to learn Japanese, but we also realize that sometimes it's a lot to expect. If you've been following Tofugu's mini-series about pocket translators-you know, those new handheld devices that translate English phrases into Japanese or some other language-you probably know that we've already reviewed Pocketalk, which we thought was pretty good.
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