I am a Christian, and it began with something my church needed — a way to keep membership records. That became Halak.
Sermons came next. Second- and third-generation Korean members whose Korean had grown thin, and English-speaking spouses sitting beside them. They were present, but not reached. Live interpretation followed naturally.
Once the interpretation engine existed, older memories surfaced. My father, ill, unable to make himself understood to hospital staff because he had no English. Mission trips abroad where entire conversations happened in gestures. And my married daughter, who wanted to talk with her husband's grandmother — the two of them without a language in common.
I wanted something anyone could pick up and use. One button, nothing to learn. And I wanted it to show you what it was about to say on your behalf — translated back into your own words — before it said it. In a hospital or an office, a wrong sentence delivered smoothly does more harm than silence. That is how AriAri came to be.
Not long after, I watched my daughter and that grandmother talking with AriAri set between them, delighted, laughing. That is when it landed — that in this era I am able to make such a thing at all. I am grateful for it.
For the past two years I have been studying acupuncture. Most of the patients at the clinic are Asian seniors who cannot hold a conversation in English. I have watched AriAri work in that room — patients curious, even amused by it, and finally able to say where it actually hurts. What I built for my own family turned out to help strangers too.
Friends send me their own stories now. Canada is full of homes and neighbourhoods where several languages meet and none of them quite connect — one family I know runs on four at once: English, Korean, Spanish, Chinese. What surprised me is how often AriAri is used not to get something done, but simply to enjoy a conversation that was not possible before.
기독교인이어서 교회에서 필요한 교적부를 만들게 되었고, 한국어가 서툰 2세·3세 한국인 성도와 영어를 쓰는 배우자들을 위해 설교 통역이 필요해 자연스럽게 만들게 되었습니다. 통역 엔진을 활용하면서, 몸이 아프셨던 아버지가 영어가 안 되어 병원 스태프와 대화하기 어려웠던 기억, 해외 선교에서 손짓 발짓으로 대화하던 추억, 영어가 안 되시는 시할머니와 대화하고 싶어 하는 결혼한 딸을 보며 간단히 조작할 수 있는 통역기를 만들고 싶어졌고, 그렇게 아리아리가 탄생했습니다.
아리아리를 가운데 놓고 너무도 기쁘고 즐겁게 대화하는 딸과 시할머니의 모습을 보며, AI 시대에 내가 이런 일들을 할 수 있다는 것에 감사한 마음입니다.
최근 2년 동안 침구 학교를 다니며 공부하고 있습니다. 아시안 시니어 환자분이 많고 영어로 대화하기 어려운 경우가 많은데, 아리아리를 사용해 보니 환자분들이 신기해하고 즐거워하시면서 진료에도 도움이 된다는 것을 확인했습니다.
요즘은 지인들이 사용 사례를 많이 보내옵니다. 캐나다는 여러 언어를 쓰는 사람들이 어울려 사는 곳이고, 한 가족 안에서 영어·한국어·스페인어·중국어가 함께 오가는 집도 있습니다. 아리아리 덕분에 전에는 어려웠던 대화를 즐겁게 나누게 되었다는 이야기가 특히 많습니다.