Konica Minolta Kotobal

2019: Announcement of multilingual service of oral translation

On November 11, 2019 the Konica Minolta company reported that it developed multilingual service of oral translation KOTOBAL. It is created to simplify communications between the staff of financial and government agencies with foreign citizens.

According to the company, a problem of a system – to simplify communication in situations when for a conversation technical terms are required. Machine translation outputs are displayed the tablet and integrate with oral translation of the operator by video conference. This solution can be used on front desks of financial and government agencies and also in real estate agencies, drugstores and other organizations.

At development of the system of KOTOBAL the technologies which are the cornerstone of the multilingual assistant for MELON medical institutions were used. It was started in Japan in November, 2016.

According to the Ministry of Justice, the number of the foreign citizens living in Japan at the end of 2018 reached record level and exceeded a mark of 2.73 million people. It is expected that this indicator will grow by 340 thousand people within the next five years in connection with review of the Law on immigration control and recognition by the refugee in April, 2019.

It, in turn, will lead to growth of appeals of foreign citizens to financial and government agencies. Difficulties in communication will increase load of the staff of services of registration: for example, even on accomplishment of routine procedures more time will be required.

Meanwhile, financial institutions are obliged to trace and investigate suspicious transactions to prevent legalization of illegal income. Conducting similar checks at foreign citizens complicates a language barrier again.

The KOTOBAL system integrates functions of machine translation on the basis of artificial intelligence and interaction with the operator by video conference. The service supports 13 languages: English, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish languages by default; Vietnamese, Thai, Russian, Tagalog, Nepalese, Indonesian, Hindi and French in addition. The choice of languages is based on "Complex measures for hiring and adaptation of foreign employees" – the document of the Ministry of Justice of Japan.

A system increases service quality of financial and government agencies and also helps foreign citizens. Thus, Konica Minolta helps society to get rid of language barriers and difficulties in communication.

The speech translation system developed by National Institute of information and communication technologies of Japan (NICT) is the cornerstone of machine translation of KOTOBAL. The system created based on the Japanese research and development provides high-quality transfer. Also Konica Minolta created a special application – at its development specialists were guided by experience with medical institutions.

In the chat mode in the application function of preserving of magazines of a talk is available. If the user needs more informative communication, he can communicate 24/7 by video conference with the operator of synchronous translation. In combination with function of a chat it provides mutual understanding of both parties.

KOTOBAL is the translation solution suitable the different organizations. Initial it was developed for departments of registration of financial and government agencies. A system was already applied by company Japan Post Co., Ltd. and large financial institutions within the program of pilot implementation.