Utsushi 写し

Say it, and it arrives in another language. And what was said stays, as a record. If you only need to be understood right now, the translator already on your device is enough. Utsushi is for the times when you need to know later what was actually said. Negotiations, meetings, service counters: there are rooms where reading it back afterwards matters as much as being understood in the moment. __________ Choose the pair of languages Any pair your device can both transcribe and translate. Japanese and Chinese, Japanese and English, English and Korean — change the pair in settings whenever you like. Put one device between the two of you and talk. Which side is speaking is worked out from the shape of the characters that come back. That means languages written in the same script — English and French, say — cannot be told apart. Pick such a pair and the app says so on screen. __________ What…