  We propose a network independent, hand-held system to translate and
disambiguate foreign restaurant menu items in real-time. The system is based on
the use of a portable multimedia device, such as a smartphones or a PDA. An
accurate and fast translation is obtained using a Machine Translation engine
and a context-specific corpora to which we apply two pre-processing steps,
called translation standardization and $n$-gram consolidation. The phrase-table
generated is orders of magnitude lighter than the ones commonly used in market
applications, thus making translations computationally less expensive, and
decreasing the battery usage. Translation ambiguities are mitigated using
multimedia information including images of dishes and ingredients, along with
ingredient lists. We implemented a prototype of our system on an iPod Touch
Second Generation for English speakers traveling in Spain. Our tests indicate
that our translation method yields higher accuracy than translation engines
such as Google Translate, and does so almost instantaneously. The memory
requirements of the application, including the database of images, are also
well within the limits of the device. By combining it with a database of
nutritional information, our proposed system can be used to help individuals
who follow a medical diet maintain this diet while traveling.
