Getting by with Google Translate

When we traveled to France a few weeks back, we were both worried about not knowing enough of the language to get by. Neither of us studied the language much beforehand, and in the end, we downloaded the Google Translate app. After all, we could look up anything we needed along the way.

Learning anything these days is quite similar. You can learn any skill – baking, woodworking, data analysis, accounting. There’s an endless list of learning resources and guides. But because the knowledge is all just waiting for you to look it up, it’s easy to just find the answer when you need it. This helps you get by in a pinch, but of course it doesn’t do much for your mastery of the skill. That only comes with practice.

I had to learn this lesson on our trip when we tried using Google Translate to order a meal. We had the technical answer. Even a guide to pronounce it properly. But the context needed to know if that phrase was appropriate for the region we were in, or if it was an awkward phrasing from a dictionary was lost on us. Moreover, any response from the waiter would completely throw us for a loop on how to respond. We had the knowledge at our fingertips, but without the skill and experience to use it correctly, we weren’t much better off than having no app at all.

Knowing the trivia will help you look the part (and maybe even feel the part). Just don’t confuse having the answer at your fingertips with actually learning it. Mastery only comes with the hard work of practice and doing.