Some things are just magic to me. iTranslate 3.0 just shipped, and it truly is magic. And fun.

You launch the app, configure a language for each side, then tap one of the buttons to speak. Your spoken voice is parsed and translated into another language. Crazy. It’s like living in the future.

I do speak a little Russian, and even with my terrible accent, iTranslate still got everything exactly right. Not only did it translate my broken Russian into English, but it spelled out my spoken Russian in Cyrillic, the Russian alphabet.

iTranslate supports 42 languages. Here’s a link to the list.

The app also includes an AirTranslate mechanism that let’s two devices talk to each other.

As with all such voice-to-text and text translation technology, there’s subtlety in the process. The key is to get good enough at using iTranslate to convey your intended meaning. Personally, I found that very doable. This is an impressive step toward the Babel fish.

Here’s a video showing iTranslate and AirTranslate in action.