those tumblr posts that are like “if you don’t enjoy using tumblr, delete tumblr!” are well-meaning and good advice but at the same time it’s awfully bold of you to assume that anyone enjoys using this site
as much as i love the idea of the universal translator, i really wish
there was more focus on the complications that must arise from
linguistic and cultural differences when using it
like, we struggle to translate between human languages, even though we
all share a common history, so what must that mean for alien languages?
how are you supposed to translate something that just doesn’t exist in
any other language? what could idioms, like “beating a dead horse”, mean
to a society without horses - or idioms? and how are you supposed to
convey cultural context? a word that translates to ‘flower’, for
example, might be laden with cultural significance, but how are you
supposed to explain that via a simple translation device?