Hello,
Few years ago google translate wasn't perfect it was funny how it translated things. But few years ago google started to make trasnlation neural network and artificial intelligence, so the translator program now literally learns as people, but it is 10000 times faster. Today i tried out, I've been learning japanese for 2 years now. I translated a little scientific article, then translate it with google translate too, from japanese to english. The google trasnlator literally won, it made a better translation than me, it's translation was 100% perfect and enjoyable. So here it is the machine learned the language perfectly and it also able to learn more, it scans the net and learn if new words created, it can't be beaten by a person.
My question after all this what is the point of learning languages? Soon everybody will use automatic translation on business conferences too, people won't have the need to learn a language, it can trasnlate after sound also immeadiately it's faster than a person and don't make mistakes like a person. Before you comment please try out the translator first, because it's not like it was 2 years ago.
Hi guys, your topic and points of views are very interesting. I would like to add to Gergelys optimism; new tech in recent years (10 or so) has been improving drastically. Therefor the amount of knowledge, resources and data recollection is 10x faster than ever in human history, which means the process of learning (for humans and AI) is drastically accelerating in comparison of our human existance. Theres some new techs like Travel Voice, Google translator... that are awesome and for sure will facilitate human interaction. And, it is normal to question weather it makes sence to put this effort/time/money on learning a new language...
However, from my personal view, languages gives much more that simple communication skills, it gives humans a more open wide view of languange their learning. Its a sort of door to learning a new culture, which means he/she by doing that, will compare it with its own culture. Which means that in some cases, we might start questioning and reevaluate our way of thinking (our status quos, dogmas, believes, religion, political opinions, meaning of life...). Therefor, being more self-aware of ourselfs.
I may have gone a bit out of topic but, I wanted to state that for me, language is a gateway, if used wisely, for our inner peace, and it can help us improve the way we think. Peace for you guys :)
Hi, this is a very interesting topic to talk about. Google Translate has improved, you are right.
But you are way too optimistic indeed. GT has still lots of problems, sometimes even with quite simple sentences. Languages are very complex.
I have been working as a professional translator for 25 years and I can tell you, I'm not afraid at all. 30 years ago, some people already told us: Why do you want to be a translator? This work will be done by machines in the future!:-)
So, language learning will still be necessary for a very long time, even if GT makes further progress. Would YOU like to live in world where communication with foreigners will only be possible thanks to hardware and software?
