Have you ever been in a situation where you would pray or trade for understanding a different language in an instant?

Google is working on that for you.

“Google plans to upgrade its Translate app to be able to interpret conversations between people speaking different languages in real time.

Following in the footsteps of Skype and its live translator launched last month in the English-Spanish combination, the Google Translate app for smartphones will tackle several of the world’s most popular languages right from the start, the New York Times has reported.

Turning spoken language into written text, the app will also allow users to scan signs written in foreign languages with their smartphone cameras and display translations or read them out loud in the user’s target tongue. The latter function was originally developed by American software company Quest Visual as part of its Word Lens tool. Google acquired Quest Visual in 2014.”

Non.

During the summer before I entered college, I and 9 other American students were placed with French families for a month in a beautiful little Burgundian town.

At table, our first evening there, we were two American students, our American leader and 6 members of my French family.

The maman came out of the kitchen carrying a small platter with three normal slices of meat on it. She served me first and proffered the platter.

Far too much food for me alone but not nearly enough for 9 unless I started cutting up the slices. Clearly there were no utensils aavailable for that.

After watching several awful attempts with my HS French, and several sweaty moments, our leader bailed me out.It was Friday; we three Americans got meat, the Roman Catholic family was going to have fish after we had been served.

I worked at a hotel in Washington DC as a personnel administrator for a couple of years. About 50% of the staff didn’t speak English. Some were from Latin American countries, Ethiopia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Fortunately, there were enough bi-lingual team members who were willing to help with translations, but as an HR rep, it was not only important to ensure that questions were answered effectively, it was time-consuming for all involved and felt like a violation of privacy to talk about personal matters through an interpreter.

I’ve never felt the need so extreme that I would pray or trade, but I have been in situations where it would have been nice. Actually, that’s basically my life. I understand a lot of Spanish, but I miscommunicate with my MIL all the time and I have to prod my husband for help. It can get frustrating.

One time I was helping Chinese tourists and it really would have been nice to be able to help and reassure them in their language. I think they understood what we were doing for them. They spoke a very little bit of English. I was working at a department store and they asked me to call for them to order transportation back to their hotel. They had the phone number. I don’t remember if it was a shuttle service or taxi. Over a half an hour later the store was closed and as I left work I saw them still waiting outside; the ride should have been there by then. It was pitch black out, although the parking lot was lit, but it was emptying out. There weren’t cell phones in those days. All I could think was if I were them I would be getting nervous, or feel stranded. I told them I would wait with them. I don’t know how much they understood. Another coworker of mine saw me and waited also. Finally, around 5 minutes later the shuttle showed up. I think they knew we would have gone out of our way for them to make sure they got back safely, but it really would have been nice to reassure then verbally.

Since I speak English I have been lucky that almost everywhere I have traveled in the world there is usually someone who speaks some English. I haven’t been to extremely remote places though.

@JLeslie How long have you been married?

The reason I ask this question is that, as I can communicate with these friends to a certain extent in Norwegian, it is both our second language. I just wish I could freely converse with them in Polish so I could express my proper gratitude for what they do for me and my son. I live in a very metropolitan place and people come from all over with varying degrees of education. It is FAR from ‘extremely remote’. Most of the time, English does NOT cut it.

@cazzie 22 years. The only time it really is a problem is when it is something very delicate, which is the worst time to not communicate well. Some of it is family differences. Even two people who have spoken English their whole lives can miscommunicate intention or upset someone without meaning too. Add in subtleties that can be lost in translation and it can make things worse. It doesn’t happen very often, my Spanish is pretty good. I spend all day speaking Spanish when I’m with my Inlaws, but I still am
not perfectly fluent.

Not yet, but if I’m ever drinking with @gailcalled in Finland . . .

Not that I can recall. Although, there have been many times when I wished I had more than a rudimentary understanding of a given language.