Will machine translation ever be as good as human translation? How do services like Google Translate actually work? How does Alexa or Siri know what I'm saying? And will I ever be able to have a true conversation with my virtual assistant? Michael Rosen explores new developments in speech recognition, machine translation and speech synthesis with journalist and author Lane Greene.

Lane Greene is the language columnist and Spain correspondent at The Economist. He’s the author of two books about language: 'Talk on the Wild Side' and 'You Are What you Speak'.

Produced by Mair Bosworth for BBC Audio in Bristol