Hi...

Many of you might already know this, but if you are playing/chatting with/greeting a person from another country and want to try and maintain a good chat with them (which can also make them feel more welcome!) but language becomes a bit of a barrier, try http://translate.google.com/ for it has become a huge help for me (link here) -- I have welcomed a nice chap from Italy, and he tells me his English is not so good.  Instead of just accepting the language barrier between us and keeping the conversation to a minimum, I just fired off a huge warm note back to him and had google do all the work!

Thats a pretty good Idea! I had someone earlier that I wanted to talk to a little further, and this'll help!  Now... If I could just log in to live chess............ EHHHH!

Oh No No NO Now this could be fun  :))  Joking  good Idea!!

You do realise that all those internet translator sites are crap and end up traslating "what are your hobbies" as "do you like playing with fish" or something stupidly similar?

I think the Google one does a pretty good job actually. I mean come on it's Google.

This is true -- i think if Google's translate was pure crap, we'd hear about it.  I know there are limitations, and its not a pure gold translation, but I don't think there are any misinterpretations done on purpose.

The translaters are really appalling.  I speak French and English and I've toyed with it before.  It gives REALLY bad translations.  Be careful.

KnightNotHorse wrote: ...i think if Google's translate was pure crap, we'd hear about it...

staggerlee wrote: The translaters are really appalling.

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 Well, looks like we are hearing about it!

I'd agree that you have to be careful. Some English words that have multiple meanings, have specific counterparts in other languages. For example, in English 'to spend' can mean to spend money or time, but there are different verbs in French (dépenser and passer). So be careful and make sure to use words that are not ambiguous

Yes, this is true, but at least they will get the gist of what I am saying...if we get into explicit details about anything (deep annotations of chess, various forms of optic surgery, how to land the space shuttle in dense fog, etc.), I will probably avoid those topics with Google Translate...prob. will leave the conversation to more light stuff that can go either way, but hopefully they will know what I am talking about.