I'm totally loving that I'm writing on this for the post in response to the HL prompt about "A New Language". It's because I'm just about to conclude a Korean series titled "Can This Love Be Translated?" that says a whole lot about the focus of the prompt... About language barrier and the ease of interpretation that has come with it.
I remember seeing a movie long ago when we didn't have much translation, they had people translating languages for two different speaking persons and it helped communication grow. One downside I remember clearly was the translator being able to influence what exactly the parties will hear from each other, they were the bosses.
In the Korean series "Can This Love Be Translated?" the translator did a whole lot of tampering with information that he communicates between the parties who can't understand themselves. Though I appreciate the story, I also got to understand how the human factor in translation can be limiting in accuracy.
So if AI has come to help out in translating the exact words we say to be understood, I see more ease in communication with that. We just tell AI what we want the others to know and the others understands very well what I have said with no human addition or subtraction. For me, it makes a lot of sense to rely on AI for translation than human if we want the exact words that is said.
And I am not ruling out the fact that some human translators actually subtract or add to what is said for a party not to feel hurt so if we want to rely on AI for the translation, we would have to be ready to hear every single thing said, whether it will hurt or not and there will be no human touch.
But it's a big YES that there is still need to learn and understand languages as a person. Personally, I'm finding a way to build my mind towards being dedicated to learning one language and go for another when I'm good with it. It won't be so easy but I have beautiful reasons to learn the new languages and I'll share them.
First off, there's no way a machine can say the words just as well as a human can no matter what is being said, I've listened to a few of them. Even though we would risk a human tampering with words during interpretation, we would always appreciate consciously or unconsciously, the human essence in the words interpreted.
Secondly, learning a new language is like a challenge for the brain. You could even use AI to learn a new language, so that's another use of the AI instead of totally relying on it to do all the interpretation. If you love a particular language, try learning it. It teaches your brain to do the hard things and it improves your mental health too.
Another reason to learn a new language is to open opportunities for you wherever you could find yourself. Imagine landing in a strange place, they understand what you say because you use their language... Then imagine being in that strange land, you don't get anything they say so you try to bring out an app on your phone to communicate with them... Which would create opportunities for you more? I'll say, it's the first.
The need to learn a new language, if it's a skill you're interested in, haven't been taken away. Instead, there is now easier ways to learn your new languages without having to bother people about it. Just learn in silence with your AI tool and speak confidently in public, making people wonder how skillful you are, it's a beautiful skill.
I won't say it's a bad trend that people now use softwares and apps to communicate fine but it really do not take the need to learn new languages away, my thought is based on what learning new language means for our mental health and also to keep the human factor alive.
Images used are AI generated.
