 Minister of Knowledge Economy Hong Suk-woo, center, poses with Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) President Kim Heung-nam, left, and Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) President Lee Charm after signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the promotion of an auto-interpretation application at the Tourism Information Center in Seoul, Wednesday. / Yonhap |
By Yun Suh-young
Foreign travelers to Korea will be able to communicate easily with Koreans from now on even if they don’t speak the language, due to help from a new application.
The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) said Wednesday that an automatic interpretation application for smart phones, GenieTalk, which operates in English and Korean, is now available at app stores.
The interpretation technology was developed as part of a fundamental technology development project of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.
The application has been on a trial service until now in limited regions but has now expanded its service to the entire country.
The application which was developed late last Month has been servicing Jeju Island since January and was also on trial service at the Yeosu Expo from May to August.
The name GenieTalk comes from the word “genie”, associated with the mythical magic lamp, combined with “talk.” It means that the application is a smart machine that makes people’s wish to communicate come true, acting much like the “genie” from the magic lamp.
The application offers 270,000 Korean words and 65,000 English words. It is claimed that the application’s interpretation accuracy rate is 80 percent, much higher than that of Google Translate’s 65 percent.
The application is available for both Android and iOS users and can be downloaded at the Android market or on Apple’s app store after searching “GenieTalk.”
The ETRI plans to develop services in eight other languages, including Chinese, Japanese and Spanish. It plans to make them available by 2018 when the PyeongChang Winter Olympics will be held.
The ETRI and the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday to cooperate in promoting the application and invigorate the tourism industry.
“The application is a success example of IT technology infused into tourism. We hope the application will improve the quality of tour in Korea through its high-quality interpretation service,” said Lee Charm, CEO of KTO.
The tourism organization plans to actively promote the application to attract more foreign tourists into Korea.
Minister of Knowledge Economy Hong Suk-woo and ETRI President Kim Heung-nam were present at the signing ceremony.
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