It used to be that lazy entrepreneurs could rely on the old language-barrier excuse for why they weren’t expanding into fresh markets/sourcing from China/JV’ing with that start-up in Brazil.

Not anymore– if the Vocre app from San Jose startup myLanguage, unveiled  afternoon at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, works as advertised. Speak into your phone at English, and the guy listening at the other end in Beijing will hear your words in Mandarin (or he’s in Paris, French; in Tokyo, Japanese; or a handful of other languages).

It’s not perfect– there are some short pauses between sentences– but judging by its performance on stage, it’s a lot better than thumbing through a phrasebook.

The Vocre app builds on the Nuance Mobile and Dragon Mobile technology.