- Title: Syrian refugee in Turkey creates live translation app
- Date: 12th May 2016
- Summary: COMPUTER SCREEN SHOWING APP
- Embargoed: 27th May 2016 15:07
- Keywords: Syrian refugee translation app Tarjemly Turkey Istanbul
- Location: ISTANBUL, TURKEY AND ANIMATION
- Reuters ID: LVA0044HI6VRV
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: More than 2.5 million Syrians have fled the civil war for neighbouring Turkey, with many refugees facing difficulties understanding the language.
But one refugee, 26-year-old Syrian IT engineer Mojahed Akil, has created a mobile app to help break down language barriers.
Tarjemly Live offers a number of translation services in Arabic, English and Turkish.
The app allows users to connect to a translator on their phone in real time and also offers a text service to translate official documents, medical prescriptions, or passages of Turkish text.
"You can take our application and call the translator. After that, the translator will be help you and make everything you want and translate you what you want to another language," said Akil.
An engineer who fled from Aleppo four years ago, Akil says he now employs around 130 translators in 14 cities around Turkey, with the main office in the south-eastern city of Gaziantep, near the Syrian border.
Akil said there was a growing interest for Tarjemly Live among Syrian communities, with users of the app totalling 20,000.
"We have voice translation, we have 3,500 minutes and we have 55,000 word translation from Arabic language to Turkish language or from Turkish language to English language. Our office is in Gaziantep, the main office and we have branch in Istanbul," he said.
App users can either talk to a translator directly or have a teleconference with the Turkish speaker and translator.
"You can use this application in the hospital and in the bank and in the government building. You can use anywhere in the restaurant, in the cafe, because all of these places, they cannot speak in English, in Turkish language. So you can use our application to help you to translate anything you want," added Akil.
App users pay for each translation, at a cost of 0.75 Turkish lira ($0.25 USD) per minute.
Users also have access to specialist translators in various fields, such as medicine or business, to offer specialised translations for official documents.
Akil now hopes that by widening his target users to locals as well as tourists, his app will reach more non-Turkish speakers in the country. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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