Using Google translate on a date?

Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong

Yakkapp or rather Martin tweed me a link to someone’s first date which involved a language translator app.

Blind date in Korea, spoke no English. We only talked w/ translator apps. Something he wrote translated to, “I drink pain.” #WorstFirstDate

I dont know the ins and out of the date or the setup, but Lindsey Nothstine’s tweet got me thinking about my experiences of Google translate in Tokyo and would that work in a dating scenario? Skype’s translation feature is pretty epic but certainly breaks the flow of conversations.

It might not be perfect but like I said about Google translate perviously. It opens up the world to you like the man (trainer) I was talking to in the maid cafe. There was no way he could wonder up mount Fuji looking for Pokemon’s scenes (how ironic following Pokemon go’s launch) alone without being able to speak or understand Japanese.

If Google translate can help you to go new places, meet new people or even date them; it can’t be that bad surely…?

File this under pushing your boundaries…?

Update…

Forgot to add that in the movie Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong (which is pretty much Lost in Translation for Hong Kong and well worth watching – Cheers to Nico for the recommendation).

There is a scene when they discuss meeting people in other countries and using Google translate to communicate. They also talk about going on a first date with 3 spaces, two for the couple and one for the translater.

Author: Ianforrester

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser. Can be found at cubicgarden@mas.to, cubicgarden@twit.social and cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io