Can Google Translate help you learn a second language?

Teachers and tutors can use translation software as an ally in the language learning process.

Bob Harris is a film star in Tokyo who is hired to advertise the Japanese whisky Suntory in Sophia Coppola’s Lost In Translation.
Bob (Bill Murray) feels bewildered during the whiskey commercial campaign when he realizes that the interpreter who was assisting him in communicating with the Japanese director did not adequately translate what he had stated in English.

Communication situations like this have become more common in today’s more globalised and linked society than in earlier generations.

People in such situations can now rely on intelligent systems such as the freely available web-based translation tools rather than relying solely on interpreters in the age of artificial intelligence.

Translation technologies were created to assist us in communicating in languages that we do not know or comprehend, hence bridging language gaps.

Despite the fact that there are still challenges to overcome with this technology, translation tools are improving with each new release.
As a result of the improved user experience, they have grown in popularity and are now widely used.

Translation tools can be found in our computer browsers and social media sites, and they can even be downloaded as apps to our phones.

It only takes a few clicks to translate a social media post, a website, text messages, speeches, or photos, such as a restaurant menu printed in a foreign language.

The widespread availability of online translators, combined with their ease of use, has resulted in a rise of users, particularly in the last five years.

Among these users are even language learners.

Language teachers have been challenged by the popularization and emergence of these technologies, which are being utilized by students to complete assignments, despite the fact that they are not often recommended as a tool to help second language learning.

Because these systems are available as mobile apps, they make it easier for language students to use them as a communication tool.

If English speakers learning Spanish wish to speak Spanish but are unsure how to build a statement or don’t know a term in Spanish, they can use the app on their mobile device to rapidly translate the sentence or word, giving them more confidence while speaking.

However, many language teachers believe that translation software can hinder pupils’ capacity to converse independently in a second language.

Following criticism of the usage of translation software throughout the language learning process, DCU School of Computing academics investigated if using Google Translate could lead to erroneous learning.

They also investigated if the employment of these tools could have a favorable impact on the acquisition of a second language, particularly the learning of sentence formation.

The researchers enlisted the help of native Portuguese speakers from Brazil who were studying English in Ireland at various levels of ability.
The goal was to look at how participants spoke in English before and after using the Google Translate software on their personal phone.

After translating sentences from Portuguese to English using the translation software, researchers discovered that participants were more likely to talk in English adopting the sentence structure read in the translated output.

This was true even if it was a more alien structure for them than a structure that approximated the word order in their mother tongue.

Because the word order of the latter does not exist in Portuguese, it is easier for Portuguese speakers to state “The office table was broken” than “The office table was broken,” making this structure problematic for Brazilian pupils.

Participants modified their language behavior to reflect Google Translate’s output and employed the more challenging structure in speech after reading the translated sentences on the app in the more challenging structure.

Furthermore, the investigation demonstrated that this effect was long-lasting: 24 hours after the trial, the same subjects were still constructing the complex phrase patterns in English.

What are the implications of these findings?

To begin with, people are impacted not only by the language of others, but also by the language of computer systems they trust.
Second, translation technologies like Google Translate not only reduce language barriers, but they may also be used by language teachers and tutors as an ally rather than an adversary in the language learning process.

This is particularly true while learning difficult sentence forms in a second language.

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