Google Translate Now Adds Several African Languages, Very Helpful For Students

Google has introduced several new languages from Africa. (photo: ary julianto/voi.id)

JAKARTA - Ugandan IT student Andrew Njuki spent years reading English textbooks. He also frequently struggles with material that would be easier to understand in his mother tongue, Luganda.

Starting in May, the 27-year-old will be able to copy and paste his online teaching materials into Alphabet Inc's Google translation service. He also reads it live in Uganda's official language, Luganda, which is spoken by millions throughout the east African country but is not taught in schools.

"To understand something better, you must first understand it in your native language," says Njuki, who also finds the service useful for surfing the internet and social media.

The service was not perfect, he said, he rated it about 60% for quality and 65% for accuracy. But this is a start.

Translation and language learning giants such as Google and DuoLingo are now expanding the language databases available online, in their efforts to expand representation and reduce bias in artificial intelligence systems.

Isaac Caswell, a research scientist at Google Translate, says for minority language speakers "it can feel like the tech world is ignoring you." Online translation "is a very important signal to show that we care about you," he added.

Luganda was one of 24 languages added to Google Translate in May, with others from sub-Saharan Africa, India, and South America. There are now 23 African languages on the platform, accounting for 17% percent of the current total.

DuoLingo, which includes eight underrepresented languages out of the 40 on offer, is working to add Zulu and Xhosa - spoken by 20 million people mainly in South Africa - later this year.

Kampala resident Hussain Bharmal, originally from India, struggled to find resources to study Luganda, and believes instant translation on his phone will help bridge the gap.

"When you speak someone's language, you have to get the key to their heart," says the web developer.