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A Tokyo trip reportA Tokyo trip reportPosted Jul 19, 2007 9:44 UTC (Thu) by pcampe (subscriber, #28223)In reply to: A Tokyo trip report by evgeny Parent article: A Tokyo trip report
>Certainly, unless some global catastrophic disruptions happen, the mankind
200 years from now, we have real-time, multi-language, inch-size translators, so won't be the need for a global language, an impoverishment from the cultural diversity and richness we have now with many different languages with millions of books and documents written.
If I can say, I've noted that a very tiny part of american people care about speaking a foreign language, so they underestimate the difficult for a non-english speaking person to use another language for everyday's work, and I guess that if american are not so american-centric, this would help a lot in interoperability between people.
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A Tokyo trip report Posted Jul 19, 2007 10:37 UTC (Thu) by evgeny (guest, #774) [Link] > 200 years from now, we have real-time, multi-language, inch-size translators, so won't be the need for a global language, an impoverishment from the cultural diversity and richness we have now with many different languages with millions of books and documents written.
If these "real-time, multi-language, inch-size translators" are so good, the "millions of books" would be translated with no problem.
> If I can say, I've noted that a very tiny part of american people care about speaking a foreign language
People are lazy; true for any nationality/locality. Americans are lucky to be born in a country where the native language is (as of today, at least) the least common denominator in science and business.
> so they underestimate the difficult for a non-english speaking person to use another language for everyday's work
Don't envy ;-). The more people learn English today, the sooner your dream of "inch-size translators" will become reality...
A Tokyo trip report Posted Jul 19, 2007 14:30 UTC (Thu) by Hanno (guest, #41730) [Link] > 200 years from now, we have
First, I want the jetpacks, the flying cars and the moon colonies they promised me for seven years ago.
A Tokyo trip report Posted Jul 19, 2007 18:02 UTC (Thu) by elanthis (subscriber, #6227) [Link] It has less to do with not caring about other languages, and more just to do with practicality. If I am doing work in English, either I need to learn your language so you can help or you can learn my English so you can help. Guess which one I'll choose?
The same goes in reverse. There are a LOT of really cool things going on in non-English-speaking countries that I'm interested in, but it's not their job to convert all their stuff to English so I can participate. It's my job to learn their language. If I don't think it's worth the effort, then that's my choice, and my loss.
I wasn't saying that everything should be done in English, just that people shouldn't whine about how it's unfair that people in non-English-speaking countries have difficulty functioning in a largely English-speaking community of software development. If a translation of the documentation isn't available, and you want to participate... learn English. Yeah, that's really darn hard (learning any new language is hard), but that's just how reality is - it's in English, learn it or you don't get to use it. Simple.
A Tokyo trip report Posted Jul 20, 2007 0:02 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] just that people shouldn't whine about how it's unfair Well in this article, at least, nobody's whining about unfairness. The whining is about the loss of the work the non-English speakers could do if not for the English lanuage barrier. And it really is just whining, by the way. (Or, if you think that has negative connotations, it's pointing out a problem, not advocating a solution). I don't see anyone seriously suggesting a way to breach that language barrier that doesn't cost more than it would gain.
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