27. The apparatus of claim 25 , wherein the user interface accepts orthographic input in the user's language.
25. A field maintainable class-based translation apparatus comprising: at least one microphone for receiving an audible utterance in a first language from a user of the apparatus; an automatic speech recognition module for the first language in communication with the at least one microphone, wherein the automatic speech recognition module comprises a recognition lexicon for the first language, an acoustic model for the first language, and a language model for the first language; a machine translation module in communication with the automatic speech recognition module for translating output from the automatic speech recognition module in the first language into a second language; a user interface for the user to input an indication to add a new word to the recognition lexicon of the automatic speech recognition module for the first language, and a correction and repair module for determining word class information, a pronunciation in the first language, and a translation in the second language for the new word; wherein, when the new word is not contained in the recognition lexicon of the first language and is not contained in the language model of the first language, the new word, along with the word class information and the pronunciation in the first language determined by the correction and repair module are added to the recognition lexicon for the first language; and wherein the new word, along with the word class information and the translation in the second language determined by the correction and repair module are added to the machine translation module such that the machine translation module translates the new word to a corresponding translated word in the second language.