Communicating Across Language Barriers: Language Translation Technology

Journal 2

Corrections Today

Oct 2006 Vol. 68 Iss. 6

Communicating across language Barriers: Language translation technology

George B. Drake

Pg. 35 5 pgs

This article talks about the difficulty officers whether it be parole, probations or guards, have while speaking to a person not of the English language the article gives examples of situations that have happened because of the fact that they couldn't understand the inmate or parolee for example an distraught Spanish speaking offender went to his probation officer to tell him about his drug addiction and that he wanted help with it, not understanding the offender the probation officer sent him away and told him to come back at one and the offender never returned. But now they have created a language translation system so when a Spanish speaking person or anyone that does not speak English the translator has a microphone in it so it automatically translates for that officer and tells them what that person has said. It gives the ability to have a conversation without having to stop and look up every word they just said it also makes it so that they don't have to wait for a translator. The article goes on about how 21.3 million people in the united states do not speak English or it is very difficult for them to learn the language it also has a lot of other statistics on how this is going to make the conversation between a non-speaking person and an English speaking person a lot smooth. It will give the ability to put the conversation in real time with out long pauses making conversations for the non-speaking person a lot comfortable.

I think that this new translator will be a great success, I think that it will keep the recidivism of non English speaking people lower.