I have done enough traveling to know that one of the biggest barriers to really being able to experience a culture is the language barrier. I have tried so hard to get information through to people only to fall short. I have managed to rise above some of these with the use of gestures and sometimes with the help of someone who knows other words than I do so it makes for a great little mini adventure just trying to order breakfast.
When I come across a word that I don’t know I usually figure out a way to translate it. I find that the best way to translate straight vocab words is with a free tool from our friends at Google. Yes. I’m talking about Google Translate.
I know that there are many bilinguals and polyglots who hate Google Translate because it has terrible grammar and is wrong all the time and yada yada yada but I have actually used it to have entire conversations with people who don’t speak any English.
I was actually surprised to find myself in Costa Rica struggling so hard to understand what this girl was saying to me and we both kind of gave up after a short while and saw the light bulb turn on in her head (less barrier with body language) she had some sort of plan. She got onto the old school computer at my hostel and we waited a couple minutes while it booted up. Once it was up and running she quickly typed some stuff and before I knew it, I was looking at an all too familiar screen. I was looking at “Google Traductor” (You get 1 guess as to what that means in Spanish). What shocked me the most about all of this was the fact that SHE was the one to think of this. I use Google Translate on almost a daily basis but most Americans I meet have no idea about it. I NEVER would have thought that a girl from Costa Rica would know what Google Translator is and how to use to have an entire conversation with someone.
Once she opened the window she began typing in crazy fast Spanish. When she finished she translated it and I was looking at a crude translation of what she was trying to convey. She pushed the keyboard over to me and we opened another tab for me to type in English and translate into Spanish. This went on for a while as we learned new words in each others language and gave each other some puzzled looks as things didn’t quite add up with Google’s translator bot. I noticed that I had to type in higher English than I would normally speak so that that bot can properly translate my intent.
“Hey do you know where I can get something to eat around here?” got me a look of confusion so I switched to “I am hungry. Where can I buy some food?” and I was typing on a Costa Rican keyboard so there were a few letters and punctuation in different places so it was harder than normal for the Google to understand what I was trying to communicate.
I am not saying that Google Translator is an end-all for surviving in another language but it certainly has helped me in a number of instances to get a point across. It’s important to note that Google Translator is not only a website that can be accessed on any computer with internet access but there’s also a Google Translator App that I used to help some German girls communicate with a Japanese guy in our hostel. How’s that for a linguistic adventure? Google is not perfect and never will be but if you can look past some grammar errors and try to communicate using their incredibly useful FREE tool to make your way around the globe with a lot less stress in your life.
If you know more than one language, you can even become part of the Google Translate Community and help to contribute new vocab words and phrases to help others around the world learn with Google Translate.
