In Japan, "the aging of the elderly" is progressing. Regarding nursing care services, the principle of competition is at work, and everyone is becoming able to receive nursing care services. The principle of competition works, and qualitative improvement of long-term care services has been partially achieved. However, there are problems in nursing homes. Nursing care sites are in a harsh environment where work must be done with a small amount of manpower. Of course, the development of information and communication technology (ICT) and nursing care robot equipment has also created a situation in which the burden on caregivers is reduced.
If there is a tool that allows foreign caregivers to communicate in their native language at Japanese nursing care sites, it will expand the possibility of immediately utilizing better human resources. This tip was in the construction industry. This is the scene of the condominium construction site in Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture, which Tobishima Construction is working on. Japanese supervisors and Vietnamese workers communicated with each other in their native languages using translators. At the Tobishima construction site, Vietnamese workers are given terminals linked to translation software. At this construction site, they interact with a display for one eye and a tablet terminal. Japanese is translated into Vietnamese and displayed on the screen for two-way communication. Japanese is the most difficult language for people coming to work from abroad. Overcoming this language barrier will allow you to quickly adapt to working in Japan. As long as you overcome the language barrier, you can utilize human resources as an immediate force. And Tobishima Construction is doing this.
The translation ability of Japanese and English AI greatly exceeds the level of ordinary people. After finishing speaking, the translated characters will be displayed in 1-2 seconds for English and 3-4 seconds for Vietnamese. Attempts to approach the level of natural conversation are being realized. When Japanese and Vietnamese speak in their mother tongues, such as "It's hot today, so please drink water frequently" and "I understand", a situation that they can understand each other is created. The voice of the speaker picked up by the microphone built into the earphone is translated by the AI of the smartphone application. Since the translated voice is immediately played from the other party's earphone, you can talk to each other in your native language. The performance of automatic translators has made great strides. This collaboration between machines and people may provide a mechanism that simultaneously solves Japan's aging problem and the Japanese language problem of foreign caregivers.