The ability to speak a foreign language is a highly prized skill in today’s globalized world, what with cultures and peoples mixing more freely now than at any other time in history. Particularly in a business sense, being able to converse with foreigners is essential for anyone who wants to get ahead of the game.

But things may not always be this way – or at least, they won’t be if the new translation application from Japanese firm NTT DoCoMo is anything like as good as the company claims.

Starting from next week, NTT DoCoMo plan to introduce a new service to its mobile network that offers to translate conversations in real-time, doing away with the need for human translators.

The app in question is called Hanashite Hon’yaku, which roughly translates as “speaker translation” (and no, we didn’t ask it).

Hanashite Hon’yaku is designed to translate freely any of the following four languages – Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean – using a cloud-based translation program that we presume is somewhat similar to Google’s Translate tool or other machine translation programs. The app is designed to be able to handle conference calls involving as many as four different people, speaking all four languages its capable of translating. However, Hanashite Hon’yaku isn’t limited to phone calls alone, as it can also be used for face-to-face chatting (much like those handy translation gimmicks they had in Star Trek).

Human translators probably need not get too worried at the moment though. The BBC tested out the app, and they found that while it is indeed possible to communicate using Hanashite Hon’yaku, it’s far from perfect, especially when we start speaking in complex sentences.

Even so, Hanashite Hon’yaku seems to be a decent first stab at automated translation, and given time the app will surely improve.

Accompanying Hanashite Hon’yaku is a second potentially useful application called Utsushite Hon’yaku, which is able to recognize and translate text captured on your phone’s camera. The app works by using augmented reality, and allows you to point your phone camera at a road sign or a menu, for example, before reading a translation of what the text says in your own language.

Both services will only be available on Android phones for the time being, and must be running Android 2.2 or above. In addition, you’ll need to download the relevant applications, and be hooked up to DoCoMo’s own network, as it requires both data and voice connections to work.

We imagine that the apps won’t be all that cheap, but at least the next time you’re hopelessly lost in the back alleys of Shanghai or Tokyo, you’ll not need to worry about how to ask for directions back to your hotel – simply let your smartphone do the talking for you.