Articles and Stories

February 14, 2012

Though I am not much of a writer, I can positively say I am quite a reader, and I spend several hours a day either trying to find information to solve a problem, gain knowledge, learn new skills, or simply for the joy of it. Often times, I do a search on the same topic twice, once using English keywords, and a second time using Spanish keywords. Sometimes I encounter information in one language that I cannot find in the other, and occasionally I find the same information on both languages. Perhaps cultural interests determine what type of content or subject area is more prolific while other fields seem barren, which would explain why I would get different results depending on the language.

As I had this conversation at a work dinner about the importance of knowing how to use key words efficiently to find what you need faster, one of my interlocutors conceded that I was most likely in an advantageous position due to my bilingual abilities. This got me thinking it was unfortunate how much knowledge is wasted because of linguistic barriers, and how important it is to make translated material available so that everyone has a sense of equality in accessing the best, more complete and accurate information.

Fortunately, there is an increased interest in making information available to everyone, and certain projects, such as “Wikisource” or “Wikibooks”, are the beginning of a global effort to provide material in their original text, and the translated versions. I imagine there will be plenty of works for which a translation is not available, but the important thing is that we are walking the path to share a common virtual library in several languages that will enrich us more, regardless of the languages we speak.