This new translation app drops the robotic voice to make you sound like a local

Some of the available translation tools for travelers are just not natural: the robot voice coming out of your phone makes you look like an odd robo-tourist dropped in from the future. A new service is fixing that by eliminating robotic-sounding translators with locally-tinged voices. It's called Smigin and it was invented by a team of travelers and expatriates.

The interface is also innovative, as it allows you to build phrases right from the app without having to worry about petty things like grammar. The app then promises to translate that phrase into a voice that sounds just like a local:

Order food, make reservations, and get around a new city without the weight of phrasebooks. You simply build your phrase, and hear a native speaker pronounce it, so you can sound like a local, not a tourist.

Rather than having to type in the whole phrase, the quick taps speed up the process so that the person to whom you're speaking isn't just standing there waiting for you to fiddle with the gadget. There's also a section that breaks down the potential phrases by situation, such as Shopping, Cafe, Business, etc. The Cafe section is free, with each additional phrase area costing $4.99. There are 10,000+ phrases per language and the app is currently available in Italian, Portuguese, English, Spanish, and French.

Hearing the native speaker repeating the phrase means that you can not only use it to communicate, but also to learn more about how to pronounce the phrase like a local. This encourages actual language learning rather than just a straightforward translating tool.