As the world gets "flatter," more of us communicate with more people, more often, from around the world. How do we overcome barriers to communication when there are over 300 languages on the globe today spoken by nearly 7 billion people?
As Facebook exceeds 500 million users from all around the globe, and as "Smart" cell phones permeate even the most remote locales, we are more likely and also more able to interact with people in different cultures, different geographical locations, and in different languages.
Crossing the Language and Cultural Bridge
How do we cross this bridge of language and cultural differences, and lack of shared experience? How does a Russian bride-to-be bridge communications with her future American husband? How does PowerCloud Systems, a small technology company in Silicon Valley, effectively communicate with their vendors and partners in China and Korea?How can we make the most of this wonderful opportunity to communicate and engage with people around the world when most of us do not have the most basic capability to communicate across languages?
The language spoken by the largest number of people on Earth is Chinese — yep, even more so than English. 1.4 billion people speak Chinese as a native language. However, it is spoken mostly by Chinese people to Chinese people. The most widely-spoken language by people speaking across languages, is English. It's interesting to note that about the same number of people speak English — 1.4 billion — as Chinese. There are hundreds of languages, and at least 1.5 billion people can only speak one — NOT including those who speak English.
As communication technologies and the available means for travel enable and expose more of us to those who do not speak our language, there is a dire need for ways to expand our abilities to communicate and interact in productive ways. Whether conducting business, learning about the local culture on a vacation adventure, or developing an intimate relationship with a potential life partner — yes, even over the Internet thousands of miles away — we can learn each others' languages as a path toward connecting.
Using New Translation Tools
Today there are more new tools and means available than ever before, to facilitate our ability to connect with each other.
Google has developed and continues to refine statistical machine translation. As quickly as you can type, Google Translate can send back a translation into more languages than you could ever need. Machine translation is an awesome tool that can help us in so many ways. Meet a friendly person on vacation? Pop out your iPad and type away. Get an email from a foreign vendor in their native language? Cut and paste, and the translation's there.
Of course, when it comes to understanding and capturing context, sentiment, tone (as informal versus professional), idioms, vernacular and classically human communication characteristics, computerized "machine" translation is not quite as advanced as human translation.
The Tokyo-based company myGengo is addressing this challenge. myGengo (which means "(my)Language" in Japanese, combines the concept of paid crowdsourcing with web-based, application workflows and algorithms to provide human-facilitated translation and communication services. The company has offices in Silicon Valley and offers three levels of translation services for Ecommerce translation.
Individuals from around the globe can register to translate content into their native language. myGengo has developed systems to test and continually qualify applicants to ensure their talent and quality meets acceptable standards. The translators can work from their homes, offices, and schools — wherever they want, whenever they want, and however much they want — at any given time. Because of this accommodation for personal schedules and work habits, myGengo is able to provide translations at very reasonable prices. There are no overhead costs of real estate, office space, or management supervision because the technology platform provides the workflow and management functions that enables the translators to work from wherever they happen to be.
As an example of how mobile applications and global communications are evolving, over 75 iPhone application developers have used myGengo to translate nearly a half million words in their applications, or to promote them on the Apple App Store. As mobile smart phones proliferate, independent developers can truly reach a global market and communicate in the local language of their users. For example, by adding French, German, Spanish, and Japanese to an English product launch, a software company can immediately increase their available market to users in those countries by over 200%. And now, they can achieve this expansive means of communicating for a mere few hundred dollars[1].
Smart phones have all sorts of applications developed by an incredibly large and diverse population. The iPhone alone now offers 200,000+ applications from over 30,000 developers from all over the globe. Whether translating local terms for travelers or providing entertaining games for users to enjoy, these devices are massively changing the way we interact with computing technologies as well as with each other.
Figuring out how to integrate cross-language communications and global devices like smart phones is going to be a daily requirement for a successful fulfilling life — whether seeking a partner or a customer!
[1] Based on average spend by developers translating iPhone applications on myGengo.
