Last night I got a text about a phone I was selling on Craigslist. Unfortunately, the interested party did not speak much English. 10 years ago I could have just relied upon all the Spanish I took in school, but a lack of use has made that portion of my brain accessible only through drunken recall. Luckily for me I was able to quickly and easily close the deal using Google Translate. I opened Translate in one tab and had Google Voice opened in another. From there I just copied and pated translated text in to the Voice window and a quickly managed to get an agreed price and then coordinated the meeting place and time. Here is a just a snippet of the transcript:
Once there I was REALLY excited to bust out Translate on my Android, which would have let me record him in Spanish and play back in English (or vise versa), but it ended up not being necessary and I did not want to creep this dude out by asking him questions just to play with Translate (although it took a lot of restraint not to).
I guess the point of this post is three fold:
Once there I was REALLY excited to bust out Translate on my Android, which would have let me record him in Spanish and play back in English (or vise versa), but it ended up not being necessary and I did not want to creep this dude out by asking him questions just to play with Translate (although it took a lot of restraint not to).
I guess the point of this post is three fold:
- I am awesome
- Google Translate (both the web app and Android app) is awesome.
- Language barriers are dead, if you have the right tool.
Win.
If language barriers are dead why did we wait at Yum Yum China for the Guy instead of Best Buy? hrmmm? ;)
ReplyDeleteIt was postulated there might have been a reading comprehension barrier on my end... unfortunately there is no data to support that.
ReplyDelete