With Facebook being the world’s largest social network it is quite evident that a large portion of its users, the author included, consists of non native English speakers. According to the social network itself 50% of its user base speaks a language other than English.
To help users and businesses to overcome the language barrier Facebook introduced the so called multilingual composer earlier this year to select page owners which included EDUKWEST and is now opening it up to individual users, as well.
With the help of the multilingual composer users can write and post an update in different languages. The system then displays the most relevant language to the visitor based on her language preferences and other factors.
The writer can either type or copy each of the different messages by hand or use the pre-filled text offered by Facebook’s language algorithm.
What’s EdTech about it?
[member]- Features like the multilingual composer and other instant translation tools are slowly but surely diminishing people’s immediate need for learning other languages. Once the feature works as intended users won’t even notice if an update, or entire piece of content, was originally written in a different language.
- The use of the multilingual composer will make Facebook’s translation algorithm smarter which can then be used in other projects and features. Chat bots, which we will talk more about in an upcoming post, are especially interesting in an educational setting. Facebook could also offer instant translations in its messenger which would be a useful feature for online learners and tutors.
Source: Building a better way to write posts in multiple languages
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