Will language learning become obsolete?
Technology is speeding ahead at a dizzying rate Mobile apps like Google Translate have revolutionized how we attempt to jump over language barriers, essentially allowing us to carry around mini translators in our pockets. Language teachers everywhere may tremble at the idea of language learning becoming obsolete, but do modern-day trends indicate that technology is […]
Google Buds → translation analysis
When Google’s Pixel Buds launched, it appeared amid a blizzard of publicity. They were of particular interest to the translation industry due to the inclusion of Google’s voice-activated smart assistant that, in theory at least, pairs with the Google Translate smartphone app to provide real-time translation in 40 different languages. It’s time to examine how well […]
Is machine translation any good?
In the beginning The field of automatic translation goes back further than you may think. The first research programs exploring machine translation systems were conducted in the early 1950s and focused on the Russian<>English language pair. As you can imagine, progress was slow, and the quality of the output fell well short of that produced […]