2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a state selector selected from a group consisting of vocabulary content, source language options, destination language options, numeric skills options, translation output pace, automatic mode, interactive mode, and microphone on/off.
1. A fast and engaging, real-time voice translation system comprising: a processor; a microphone for receiving sound input from a user, wherein, in operation, a portion of the sound input is associated with a spoken source phrase in a source language selected from multiple languages; a multilanguage database embodied in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium including a plurality of phrase templates associated with a respective plurality of phrases; a speech recognition module embodied in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium for converting the spoken source phrase into a recognized source phrase; a translation engine embodied in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium for translating the recognized source phrase in the selected source language into a destination phrase in a destination language selected from multiple languages, wherein the plurality of phrases in the multilanguage database include the destination phrase; a template look-up engine embodied in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium for finding the phrase template associated with the destination phrase from among the multiple languages; a parameterization module embodied in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium for deriving parameters from the sound input and applying the parameters to the phrase template associated with the destination phrase; and a speaker for outputting the parameterized destination phrase template to the user as a spoken translation in the selected destination language; wherein, a total time is required between the input of the source phrase and output of the destination phrase, the total time being no slower than 0.010 seconds.