it is the app that you can not turn off or remove without jumping through about 50 hoops... mild exagerations but not by much, and will cause havoc to both MS Office and to the OS it self no matter what MS states. it will cause BSOD errors and other wierd things to happen to your computer if you are using MS OS and you remove ctfmon.exe
it stays active 100% of the time and is supposed to help with "alternaative communcation" this includes voice activation, translation from one lang to an other, etc...
there is also the fact that it is a bit of malware that does nothing but suck up resources and cause havoc when you try to remove it. best to avoid any MS Office newer then 2k if you do not want CTFmon.exe causing fits on your computer or sucking down resources that are better used in other places.