From The Sunday Times:

GOOGLE is developing software for the first phone capable of translating foreign languages almost instantly — like the Babel Fish in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

By building on existing technologies in voice recognition and automatic translation, Google hopes to have a basic system ready within a couple of years. If it works, it could eventually transform communication among speakers of the world’s 6,000-plus languages.

[...]

However, some experts believe the hurdles to live translation remain high. David Crystal, honorary professor of linguistics at Bangor University, said: “The problem with speech recognition is the variability in accents. No system at the moment can handle that properly.

“Maybe Google will be able to get there faster than everyone else, but I think it’s unlikely we’ll have a speech device in the next few years that could handle high-speed Glaswegian slang.

“The future, though, looks very interesting. If you have a Babel Fish, the need to learn foreign languages is removed.”

In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the small, yellow Babel Fish was capable of translating any language when placed in the ear. It sparked a bloody war because everyone became able to understand what other people were saying.

Some people, David Crystal included, may actually wish to learn foreign languages, and possibly for pleasure rather than profit. Let's have a look at this "automated translation" by running the last couple of paragraphs of the Sunday Times article through Babelfish. Here they are, translated into German and back into English: 

„The future, although, looks very interesting. If you have a Babelfish, the necessity to learn foreign languages removed.

“In the leader of the Trampers to the galaxy, the small, yellow Babelfish was capable of of each possible language of translating, as put into the ear. It transmitted a bloody war, because everyone became able to understand what other people said. 

There you go, English as she is spoke.