Two instant messaging programs developed by students of Poznań's Adam Mickiewicz University are tools that allow anyone, even people with no knowledge of a foreign language, to communicate between Polish, English, German and Russian.
And it's not only about brief exchanges or small talk. Any text message entered in one of the programs is instantenously translated into the selected language.
Currently, the messengers double as translators of Polish, German Russian and English. Using the instant messaging programs, called DePeDe and Toku-Toku, developed by AMU students, you can have lengthy discussions with a foreigner even on the technicalities of developing and implementing new technologies, with the language barrier no longer standing in your way.
"We're most proud that we've been able to deliver the final product, because initially this seemed anything but possible", says Paweł Perz, one of the authors. "The program already serves several dozen users. It feels great to have come up with something useful".
DePeDe is an independent messenger operating on a server in Poznań.
"It's a good solution for people in an international company who need to exchange information quickly and in a number of languages", explains Paweł Perz. The new Internet messenger will allow Poles and foreigners to communicate without knowing each other's language.
Toku-Toku, in turn, can be used as an extension with the popular Gadu-Gadu messenger. However, both DePeDe and Toku-Toku still have some weak points.
"There are translation problems. Recently, for example, it's turned out that the Polish informal greeting cześć is translated as reverence (a legitimate but rare equivalent) rather than hi. This is why keep working on the messengers", adds Dominik Grala, another author. Users can contribute to the improvement process by reporting new words or wrong translations to the administrator.
The software was developed for over half a year by two groups of three students.
The mastermind of the project is Dr. Krzysztof Jassem of AMU's Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, chairman of Poleng Sp. z o.o.
"The messengers translate using our machine translation program, Translatica, so far used for documents and e-mails. Translatica was built on the basis of dictionaries of PWN Polish Scientific Publishers", explains Jassem and adds: "We are aware that machine translation will never equal human translation, especially if we're talking about literary works, but it can prove a great solution for technical texts and everyday exchanges. An undeniable advantage is that the messengers translate in the blink of an eye. Otherwise they would make no sense as a communication tool".
DePeDe and Toku-Toku can be downloaded from www.poleng.pl (Download section).
The messengers are free. "We may possibly earn on advertising, but not on users", Jassem promises. "We haven't considered patenting the solution. I'm not sure if we need to. Everyone is free to download and use one of the messengers, but to take full advantage of our machine translation, you'd need to spend many years to contribute to the improvement".
The availability of new software does not mean we can already forget about learing languages, because the computers will do everything for us. "Machine translation is supposed to make things easier, but it won't replace us during face-to-face exchanges. And machine interpretation (oral translation) entails a risk of serious distortions to the meaning", Jassem stresses.


Authors of the programs (from the left): Paweł Perz, Krzysztof Jassem and Dominik Grala