China Mobile users, especially foreigners, will never have to worry that their non-English-speaking friends cannot read English messages, or vice versa, thanks to a service called
SMSOK that the company launched on Friday.
According to a China Mobile spokesperson, you type in English, send it to a designated phone number and an accurate Chinese version of the sentence will show up on the
receiver's phone in very little time. The translation can be as accurate as 85 per cent, according to the spokesperson. Moreover, the translated words or sentences can be spoken in standard English or Chinese, and if mobile users so choose, messages can also be sent in multi-media messaging system (MMS) form, which can carry a much larger amount of content.
English is a mother tongue to more than 400 million people, while more than 2 billion people in the world use the language. Meanwhile, at least 1.3 billion are using Chinese
and another 30 million are studying it in 2,500 universities and institutions worldwide. Interest in the Chinese language is guaranteed to grow, as the 2008 Beijing Olympics draws near. (China Daily)
4:34:12 PM 
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