The Benefits And Responsibilities Of A Bilingual Team
- Nov 28, 2022
- 4 min read
Written by: Megan Miller, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
We work differently these days, and our language is evolving with us. Companies are humanizing their employees instead of seeing them as “cogs in machines.” Special attention has been given to teams around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as workforces continue to span oceans, continents, and cultural differences in order to work side-by-side on projects within companies of all sizes and all industries. Our technology has evolved, too. Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and machine translation (MT) software have been offering to automatically translate text we input, as well as our emails and text messages, for decades. ¹
However, anyone who has worked on those international teams or read some of those automatically translated emails know that bumps in the road are felt even more when language and cultural barriers stand in the way. The specific thing that offers to help, often hurts: and we don’t know it until two people finally connect. With remote work moving from a luxury to a necessity, that sense of connection became even harder, which is why it’s best to have trust while solving miscommunication through translation and interpretation.
Bilingualism at Work
While AI, ML, and MT are popular, mistranslations happen all the time. The program may translate the words correctly, but the cultural implications and connotations generally miss the mark. However, when a person learns another language to become bilingual, they not only learn the language and verb conjugations: they also learn the cultural norms, socio-political implications, historical implications, and pop culture references. Bilingual people know how to phrase questions so that they don’t transform into interrogations, and they know that humor is the most difficult emotion to convey.
Bilingualism is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the ability to speak two languages.” ² This means that each person focuses on communicating the tone, intent, and context of each sentence. Many times, a group may speak the same language on paper, though in practice, some words or sayings are used differently. Spanish has two primary accents (Castilian from the Iberian Peninsula and Latin American), dozens of dialects, numerous regional accents, and countless idioms and loanwords taken from pop culture references, nearby languages, or other sources.
While a robot may be able to translate a common sentence, it’s more difficult to translate idioms, sayings, and to understand accents. With this, it’s faster, easier, and more efficient for companies to hire fully bilingual people, so the reaction time is smaller and the language gaffes are less. Based on the accent, a bilingual person may be able to tailor the verbs, nouns, cadence, and general way of speaking for a singular person or group.
Risks and Limits of Language in Technology
With so much technology, it almost seems unnecessary to learn another language. Though it can be a great tool, it still has its limits. This was demonstrated via a contest held in South Korea, where machine translation tools were pitted against a team of professionals in translating two texts from Korean to English and vice versa. According to VentureBeat, the results of the 50-minute test revealed that “90% of the NMT [neural machine translated] text was ‘grammatically awkward,’ or… definitely never the kind of translation produced by any educated native speaker.” ³
Relying on machines to translate human emotions exposes a company to reputational risk every time a translation is done and not checked by a human. This isn’t news; businesses accept risk all the time. However, reputational risk is one that is very difficult to snap back from and gain users’ trust again. Companies can continue to accept the risk of mistranslation, or they can change the narrative. By empowering your employees to lean into bilingualism, you can control your narrative and your reputation.
The Benefits of Being Bilingual are More than Linguistic
Being fluent in another language doesn’t just bring increased competitiveness in the job market, although those that are bilingual can generally earn 5-20% more than monolingual employees. ⁴ Neurological benefits have been studied as well, including more gray area, increased levels of empathy, a faster pace of task-switching, and more sensitivity in verbal and nonverbal communication.
As our working world shifts and the expectations between technology and language evolve, it’s paramount that organizations don’t lose focus of the human aspect behind a business. Humans respond to algorithms and automation differently than to other humans. Multiculturalism, multilingualism, and international businesses are here to stay, and the responsibility of seeing the humans behind the customer, client, and team relationships should permeate the organizational culture, not simply a DEI Team.
If you’re serious about bringing a bilingual Spanish / English culture and language to your team, apply HERE for an opportunity to work with me.
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Megan Miller, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Megan Miller is a leader in Spanish <> English teaching and bespoke habit-based language learning. Ever since discovering the worlds beyond words as a child, Megan has dedicated her efforts to mastering Spanish, English, and how to create lasting habits to improve and maintain language skills. She is the CEO of Aprovechar Language Solutions whose mission is to empower those in need of a bilingual voice.
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