A speech translator has a phoneme recogniser for detecting phonemes and a display for displaying them. An interface communicates between the recogniser and a telephone line. The phonemes recogniser may be provided in the user's home. Alternatively a plurality of phoneme recognisers may be provided in a central telephone office or in the office of an independent service provider. The user may be provided with a keypad, for reply, coupled to a pre-recorded announcement module and a text-to-speech module.
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