Until the day comes that we can implant a chip in our heads and simply download Spanish or American Sign language into our heads, we will have to rely on translators and interpreters.
These days it is quite easy to either learn a new language or find a way to translate between them. Technology continues to develop making AI translations more accurate and language learning programs more efficient.
Translating is in high demand.
Given the fact that over half of all online content is in English, however only 20% of people worldwide speak any English, shows that the need is present and growing with each new article published. Translating and interpreting can come via machines, such as Google Translate, or via live interpreters. Microsoft has the technology to translate around 70 languages and the speech portion can detect about 40 different language inputs. Not bad, however there are around 7,000 languages in the world, so there’s still quite a gap considering that more than a billion non-English speaking people post to Facebook. That contributes to the more than 6,000,000,000 online translations per day.
While machines might be fine for those Facebook posts, you may want to think twice about fully relying on them, especially in crucial situations.
A recent study by UCSF showed that machines committed serious medical mistranslations that could cause harm between 8% and nearly 20% of the time. In situations where financial or bodily harm can occur, you may want to stick to old-fashioned (dating back to around 3 BCE) human interpreters and translators.
Other issues that can arise when using a machine translator are idioms and reliance on contextual clues for accurate interpretation.
The phrase “pan comido” literally translates into “eaten bread”, however the idiomatic equivalent in English is actually “piece of cake.” Machines have a hard time translating those and will often rely on a literal translation, which usually makes no sense.
While there are plenty of free apps and resources to help you communicate to friends and relatives, or while traveling, you may want to think twice before relying on these resources in professional and medical settings. A live interpreter may be more expensive in the short run, however it may avoid costly mistakes in the long run.
If you’d like to ask questions about whether a live Spanish or American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter is right for you, then give us a call at 855-562-7768 or email us at spotoninterpreting@gmail.com and we’ll be happy to help you meet your communicative needs.
