If you are going to China (for the olympics) but fear that language may be a hindrance, help is at a click of a button (literally). Just when I was about to start thinking that Jajah has been quiet for some time, the company has launched JajahBabel. And what better time to launch this than the Olympics.

If you have used Babelfish, you probably can guess what this is all about. JajahBabel is a real-time translation service that can work on any phone. At this point it can translate from English to Mandarin and vice versa. So if you wanted to tell your cabbie to take you to your hotel, but do not know Mandarin. You just dian in to JajahBabel and speak in plain English and then handover the phone to your cabbie to listen to the tranlation in Mandarin. Similarly, you can ask your cabbie to speak in Mandarin and JajahBabel will translate it back in English for you.

Anybody can use this service for free by dialing in the access numbers. US access numbers are 718 513 2969 and 718 513 2968 and UK access numbers are 203 3557628 and 203 0516561. I actually tried using it and it was fun!!

JajahBabel actually plans to extend this service to other language to “unleash the true power of global communications”. It will be interesting to see how this service actually performs.