http://translate.google.com/#

Some blank, and others, bewildered stares confronted Professor Lumba when he began querying us students on our understanding of the dissenting opinions of Justices Briones and Pablo in the 1948 case of Subido v. Ozaeta (G.R. No. L-1631). It wasn’t that the legal substance of the opinions was beyond a law student’s Lilliputian comprehension; just that its form was veneered in Spanish, a language now only remotely familiar to us through cusses, basic courtesies and bastardized transplantations unto the Filipino language.

The professor, in a moment of his usual humorous flair, proceeded to laconically educate the students on how to obviate the language barrier with this thing called “Google Translate”, roughly thus:

“Step one: go to ‘Google Translate’.

Step two: copy the opinion.

Step three: paste the opinion on ‘Google Translate’.

Step four: click the ‘translate’ button.”

While I’ve already played with “Google Translate” before and have had some unexpected amusement seeing how certain words and phrases came out from Filipino to English and vice-versa, it was only at this juncture that it occurred to me how immensely convenient a learning tool “Google Translate” could be.

With “Google Translate”, English as arguably the most widely used, recognized, and spoken language in the international community, can lose its standing as the default lingua franca or international medium of communication. With it, foreign correspondences can be quickly and directly translated from one language to another, and another, and another, in numerous series and permutations, without having to pass it through English. Armed with this innovative Internet application, strangers of different native tongues, who otherwise simply cannot simultaneously converse and understand one another, would no longer have to make fools of themselves with vain attempts at grimacing, sub-conversational English. All they will need is “Google Translate”. It can be the new gateway of international communication, demolishing the need for a global or universal lingua franca that is at present, English.

Raul Grapilon

Blog Entry No. 4