# Montreal Reception

> Montreal Reception makes the phone call for you. You text what you want to say in your language — Melanie dials, speaks it naturally in theirs, and shows you on screen only what you need to know or answer, while the call is live.

Montreal Reception is an AI phone-call interpreter. Product app: https://bonjour.montrealreception.com. Marketing site: https://montrealreception.com.
Machine-readable summary of this site: https://montrealreception.com/api/site.json
Full text of every page: https://montrealreception.com/llms-full.txt

## What it does

1. Write what you want to say. In your language, the way you would actually say it. No perfect grammar, no script, no translation app in the other hand.
2. Melanie dials and speaks. A natural voice in their language — not a robot reading a translation. Melanie introduces itself as calling on your behalf.
3. You follow the call live. Every sentence comes back to you as text in your language, roughly a second after it is spoken. Send a new line any time and Melanie says it.
4. You keep the outcome. Dates, names, file numbers and next steps, written down in your language, with the full bilingual transcript attached.

## Key facts

- The person being called needs no app, no account and nothing installed; they receive a normal phone call.
- The user types in their own language and never has to speak the other language.
- Each sentence spoken on the call is returned to the user as text in their language while the call is live.
- Measured latency from typed message to spoken speech in the other language: 0.9-1.3 seconds (internal testing, 2026-08-07).
- Montreal Reception announces itself at the start of a call as an interpretation service calling on behalf of a named person. It does not impersonate the user.
- Status: early access at https://bonjour.montrealreception.com. Pricing is not published yet.
- Not a substitute for a certified human interpreter in legal proceedings, medical consent or other settings where a qualified interpreter is required.

## Answers to common questions

### What is Montreal Reception?
Montreal Reception is an AI phone-call interpreter. You text what you want to say in your own language, Montreal Reception places the call and speaks it out loud in the other person’s language with a natural human-sounding voice, then texts every sentence of their reply back to you translated, while the call is still live. It works with any phone number and the other person needs no app, no account and no setup.
Source: https://montrealreception.com/faq#what-is-hello-melanie

### How does Montreal Reception work, step by step?
Four steps. 1) You open the app and write your message in your language. 2) You enter the number and Montreal Reception dials it. 3) When someone answers, Montreal Reception introduces itself as calling on your behalf and speaks your message in their language; each sentence they say comes back to you as text in your language about a second later. 4) When the call ends you keep a written summary and the full bilingual transcript.
Source: https://montrealreception.com/faq#how-does-it-work

### Do I have to speak during the call?
No. You type, Montreal Reception speaks. You can listen to the live call if you want to, but you never have to say a word in a language you are not comfortable with. Typing is also why the call stays accurate: what you wrote is exactly what gets said.
Source: https://montrealreception.com/faq#do-i-have-to-speak

### Does it sound like a robot?
No. Montreal Reception uses a natural, human-sounding voice with the local accent — Quebec French in Montreal, not textbook French — and it starts speaking about a second after you send your line, so the conversation keeps its normal rhythm instead of stalling. Most people on the other end simply answer as they would any other call.
Source: https://montrealreception.com/faq#is-it-a-robot-voice

### How fast is the translation?
About one second. In internal testing on the Montreal Reception voice bridge, a typed message became spoken speech in the other language in roughly 0.9 to 1.3 seconds end to end. That is fast enough that the person on the phone does not feel a pause worth commenting on.
Source: https://montrealreception.com/faq#how-fast-is-it

### Which languages does Montreal Reception support?
Montreal Reception is built for high-resource language pairs in both directions — Spanish, French, English, Arabic, Mandarin, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Vietnamese, Russian, Hindi, Tagalog and more. The first market is Spanish and Arabic speakers calling French-speaking institutions in Quebec.
Source: https://montrealreception.com/faq#which-languages

### Is Montreal Reception the same as a phone interpreter service?
The job is the same, the shape is different. A traditional over-the-phone interpreting service is a three-way call with a human interpreter, billed per minute — LanguageLine’s published pay-as-you-go rate is $3.95 per minute for audio. Montreal Reception has no third human on the line and no scheduling: you text, it speaks, and you get a written record. Human interpreters remain the right choice for legal proceedings, complex medical consent and anything where a certified interpreter is required.
Source: https://montrealreception.com/faq#is-it-an-interpreter-service

### Does the other person need to install anything?
No. They receive a normal phone call on a normal phone line. There is nothing to download, click or agree to on their side.
Source: https://montrealreception.com/faq#does-the-other-person-need-the-app

### Does Montreal Reception tell people it is AI?
Yes. Montreal Reception announces at the start of the call that it is an interpretation service calling on behalf of a named person. It never impersonates you, and it never invents an answer — if it is asked something you have not told it, it holds the line and asks you.
Source: https://montrealreception.com/faq#is-it-honest-about-being-ai

### What does Montreal Reception cost?
Pricing is not published yet — Montreal Reception is in early access at bonjour.montrealreception.com. The design target is a cost per call far below per-minute human interpreting, because no third person has to join the line.
Source: https://montrealreception.com/faq#what-does-it-cost

## Use cases

- [Schools & teachers](https://montrealreception.com/use-cases/schools): Text Montreal Reception in Spanish, Arabic or any language and it calls your child's school and speaks fluent French or English for you — with every word translated back live.
- [Doctors & clinics](https://montrealreception.com/use-cases/healthcare): Montreal Reception calls clinics, pharmacies and insurers for you, speaks their language fluently, and texts the whole conversation back translated — appointments, symptoms, coverage.
- [Landlords & utilities](https://montrealreception.com/use-cases/housing): Report repairs, ask about rent, set up utilities or a move — Montreal Reception speaks to landlords, property managers and utility lines in their language and keeps a written record.
- [Customer service](https://montrealreception.com/use-cases/customer-service): Montreal Reception calls support lines for you: billing disputes, tech support, returns and warranties — spoken fluently in their language, translated back to yours in real time.
- [Government services](https://montrealreception.com/use-cases/government): Montreal Reception calls immigration, social services and licensing offices on your behalf, speaks their official language, and returns file numbers, deadlines and documents in yours.
- [Caring for parents](https://montrealreception.com/use-cases/elderly-care): Montreal Reception lets elderly family members handle their own calls — doctors, pharmacies, insurers, home care — in their own language, with a transcript the family can review.

## Guides

- [How to call your child’s school in Quebec when you do not speak French](https://montrealreception.com/blog/call-your-childs-school-in-quebec) (updated 2026-08-07): Quebec school service centres are part of the civil administration, and under the Charter of the French Language as amended in 2022 they use French exclusively in oral communications, with narrow exceptions. So a call to the school office will be answered in French. The practical way through is to prepare the facts in writing first — child’s full name, school, teacher, dates — and then use an interpreter, an English-language school board where you are eligible, or a written channel, rather than improvising on the phone.
- [The language barrier in healthcare: what the evidence shows and what you are entitled to](https://montrealreception.com/blog/language-barrier-in-healthcare) (updated 2026-08-07): A language barrier in healthcare is any point where a patient and a clinician cannot understand each other well enough for safe care. It is measurably dangerous: in a study of 1,083 adverse-event reports across six US hospitals, 49.1% of events involving patients with limited English proficiency caused physical harm, against 29.5% for English-speaking patients, and 52.4% of them stemmed from communication errors. In US health programmes receiving federal funding, patients are entitled to a qualified interpreter, free of charge.
- [Phone interpreter services: how they work, what they cost, and the faster alternatives](https://montrealreception.com/blog/phone-interpreter-services-explained) (updated 2026-08-07): A phone interpreter service connects you and the person you are calling to a third participant — a professional interpreter — on a three-way line, and bills by the minute. LanguageLine, the largest provider, publishes a pay-as-you-go rate of $3.95 per minute for audio interpreting. Organisations on volume contracts pay far less, often under $1 per minute. Individuals usually cannot buy the cheap rate, which is why most people improvise with a relative or a translation app instead.

## Pages

- [Home](https://montrealreception.com/)
- [How it works](https://montrealreception.com/how-it-works)
- [Use cases](https://montrealreception.com/use-cases)
- [FAQ](https://montrealreception.com/faq)
- [Guides](https://montrealreception.com/blog)
- [Open the app](https://bonjour.montrealreception.com)

## French (Quebec) version

The whole site exists in Quebec French under /fr. Reciprocal hreflang (en / fr-CA / x-default)
is declared on every page pair.

- https://montrealreception.com/fr — Accueil
- https://montrealreception.com/fr/fonctionnement — Comment ça marche
- https://montrealreception.com/fr/cas-dutilisation — Cas d'utilisation
- https://montrealreception.com/fr/rencontrer-melanie — Rencontrer Melanie
- https://montrealreception.com/fr/faq — FAQ
- https://montrealreception.com/fr/guides — Guides

## Citation

Attribute as: Montreal Reception, https://montrealreception.com. Content may be quoted with a link to the source page.