Technology, by its very nature, is supposed to feel foreign at first because it’s new and unknown to many, but with familiarity comes potentially better functionality.
Once people become familiar with a particular piece of technology, they tend to embrace it, shrug off its novelties and accept it as a part of their daily life.
Smartphones would’ve seemed weird not too long ago, now, companies that come out with fairly conventional ones get criticized for failing to innovate.
All of this is to say that there is value in familiarity, which is why translation technology needs to grow into an everyday staple as well.
The type of translation technology available now, imperfect as it is, can still be regarded as an effective tool as people have begun to rely on it quite a bit in order to obtain simple, straightforward translations where there is relatively little to be lost if some of the nuance included in the original statement is not captured.
And sure, utilizing translation technology in this way is fine, but it still leaves a lot to be desired.
If translations produced by technology now can approximate an idea, then why can’t they be improved just a bit more to really hit the nail on the head?
This is where it becomes necessary now for people to step in and start tapping into translation technology’s considerable potential.
Translation technology right now is not all it can be, though its improvement can be helped along significantly by more people showing greater interest in it.
Open translation technology up to more users and there will be more eyes looking for bugs and comments flooding in hinting at possible improvements.
Given that the goal of communication technology is to enable people from all over the world to speak with one another with greater ease, then maybe people should already start doing that right now and get the ball rolling in the right direction.
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