Anyone who has traveled to a country where the language spoken is not their native one knows that not conversing fluently (or at all) can turn even a VIP into a second-class citizen. Einstein himself would have struggled to express his intelligence in, say, Farsi. In one of my favorite episodes of Modern Family, Sofia Vergara’s character Gloria says in frustration, “You don’t know how smart I am in Spanish!” Even fluent speakers can face bias if they have an accent because of certain underlying perceptions that your language skills are correlated with your intelligence.
No one deserves to feel like a second-class citizen, and English as the common lingua franca just doesn’t work for everyone. Luckily, advances in AI-powered translation can help us overcome language inequities around the globe by helping everyone access information in their native language. It isn’t just good for people. It’s good for business.
Language inequality is bad for business
In an English-centric…
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Source : fastcompany.com
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