Don’t fire your translator just yet, machines can’t do it all

You found it easy to disagree with people who didn’t like your ideas that email and machine translatable language would make things easier and make business more robust.

You argued constantly with people who wanted to keep the human soul in business and rely less on machines to get work done.

Then this happened. A sign in Wales written in English and in Welsh demonstrates why you really must keep the human element in business processes that involve language.

The sign in English is fine. The Welsh version underneath says: “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated.”

That’ll teach you. When the email comes back five minutes later, or even twenty seconds later, read it. It might not be what you think it is.