Mitsubishi Electric said Tuesday that it has developed a prototype for a multilingual system that shows words on a screen in different languages.
The Japanese company hopes that the system will be used on occasions such as morning assembly meetings at factories where information needs to be related accurately to a large number of workers, including non-Japanese ones.
Mitsubishi Electric aims to put the system into commercial use as early as fiscal 2025, which begins in April next year. The company also expects the system to be used for tourism purposes.
The system translates a prepared script written in Japanese into 17 other languages, with the screen showing sentences in four languages, including original Japanese sentences, at once.
In order to prevent translation mistakes, the system features a function for translating the non-Japanese sentences back into Japanese, making it easier for people to tweak their scripts.
Mitsubishi Electric has been conducting a test run of the system at its plant in Ota, Gunma Prefecture, since December last year. Around 20% to 30% of the plant's workers are foreign nationals.
Over 90% of foreign workers there said that the multilingual system helped them understand morning assembly meetings better, according to the company.
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