Google Translate... Needs a Translator

Melanie and I took our first French lesson on Wednesday, with a perky Parisian named "Julie". We will get together every Monday and Wednesday for two hours, and let me tell you, the lessons are sorely needed. Although we have managed to get by okay without knowing the local language there have been several communication issues, especially at our apartment.

Fortunately, Google makes a wonderful tool called "Translate" that can translate text, audio, and even pictures from one language into another.

Google's "Translate" tool works pretty well... but not all the time

The owner of our apartment (technically our "landlady", though I don't think they use that term here), doesn't speak any English, so when she came over the other day to oversee the installation of our replacement Washer/Dryer, I talked Melanie into using the audio feature of Translate to communicate with her.

It did not go well.

The phone was set on French/English and theoretically it can simply translate anything it hears in either language into the other... automatically. Unfortunately, there were so many people talking that I think it got confused. So while we were trying to thank everyone for the installation of our new washer/dryer the phone was babbling about the "wild stallion under the mattress".  Thanks, Google Translate. That was helpful.

A week or so later, while I was in Ibiza, some workers came to our building to fix the plumbing. One of them came upstairs to look at our radiator and since he spoke no English Melanie grabbed her phone and asked a question. She turned it around so the worker could hear the question in French, but instead of responding he just got a shocked and sort of hurt look on his face. Melanie looked down at her phone and was horrified to learn that she had asked: "Do you have Alzheimers?"

Yep, it's a good thing we're starting French lessons.