Universal translator?

Google are investing so much of their resources

into translation systems.

Google is a good example for the fact that language programmes, be they for professional or private use, are gradually corrupting other languages.

The programmes are "English-based", if you like. And while amazing progress has been made, they force English thoughtlines, literal translation of terms or idioms, and even English syntax onto the respective other language. In this anglicised global world the dominance of English has lead to a breathtaking infiltration of other languages - where especially the young people and the media prove their coolness by using as many English terms and phrases as they possibly can (often without knowing what they actually mean).

While almost all of the European languages have the same root and linguistic interchange has been going on for thousands of years, of course, the internet and the media have turned what once was a slow process of assimilation into an avalanche of exposure to a foreign language. 

The translation programmes may produce understandable results, but most often grammar is corrupted and/or the terms used are out of context. The problem is that people using the programmes think they are getting a proper translation of their texts and that - depending on their own command of their mother tongue - the recipients of that translation either think: "oh well, I know what they are getting at" or they take the outcome of a translation for the proper version of their own language. This way "talking garbage" is propagated indefinitely.

In other words if we leave the core of what sets us off against the other species - being able to express and communicate the most complex thoughts and feelings - to artificial intelligence, we need to make sure that the developers of such intelligence act on the basis of humility and problem awareness, and offer their products as a crutch, a tool at best, not as the real thing. 
The real thing is learning languages: the proper use of one's own language and then learn at least one other language.