Despite the large number of foreigners learning to speak Japanese in the last decade, there are inevitably going to be language barriers at any sort of large international event like the Olympics. That’s why, in 2020, Japan intends to introduce new state-of-the-art instant translation technology. The real-time translation system will include applications that can be installed on smart phones and other internet connected devices. To use the app, all people need to do is select their target language, speak into the device, and then wait for it to translate and convert what was spoken into audio and visual form. The software analyzes the voice and selects the closest translation from a vast collection of phrase pairs stored in its database. The more it’s used, the more sophisticated it gets by gradually increasing the amount of usable data on the server (with the user’s consent, of course).Electronics manufacturer Panasonic also plans to release a credit card-sized device capable of translating Japanese into 10 other major languages. They’ll also supply visitors with an app that can read Japanese street signs and translate them instant