> When I am abroad, my phone lets me real time translate menus!
The first time I traveled abroad (years before smartphones became commonplace), my boss insisted I pay attention to every conversation, even when I didn't speak the language. It turns out, in a lot of languages, there are a lot of unexpected cognates. And you can pick up quite a few words in very little time just by listening.
You say your phone helped you carry on a conversation in a language you didn't speak, but have you tried it without the phone? It works better than you probably think. Imagine you saw your favorite movie for the first time in a foreign language. Don't you think you could figure out most of it from visuals, emotions, and context? In my experience, you can understand about 80% of a movie without speaking a word of the language. 5 year olds don't know that many words, anyway!
Also: menus? If I'm traveling somewhere where I can't read the menu, I probably don't know what any of the food is, either, so I'll eat anything. Trying new and unknown native customs is the whole point of traveling.
This all sounds to me like people who say "I need GPS or I'll never find anything!" Actually, my friends who don't use GPS got lost the first few times, but now know the city better than anyone. My friends who use GPS every time, OTOH, still don't know where anything is.
Doesn't work that well for Chinese and English. :)
> If I'm traveling somewhere where I can't read the menu, I probably don't know what any of the food is, either, so I'll eat anything. Trying new and unknown native customs is the whole point of traveling.
I mean yeah, but I want to know the general theme. I accidentally ordered Pine Nut ice cream in Mexico, it was delicious. (I expected pineapple, nope, something better!)
But even being willing to try interesting foods, I want to at least know I'll get something I can eat. I don't care if it is served with a side of stinky tofu and it is spicy enough to burn down a small forest, but there are certain foods I've tried (repeatedly!) and found out I don't like. I'll revisit them every few years and try again, but I don't want to order entrails 3x in a row by mistake.
But hey, turns out squid jerky is pretty good!
> Actually, my friends who don't use GPS got lost the first few times, but now know the city better than anyone.
Of course, but if I have to meet someone somewhere, I'll use GPS because "sorry I got lost exploring" is a crappy reason to delay someone else.
I'm more than willing to wander around places w/o GPS. But sometimes I actually need to get someplace.
Or heck, just get out of a Tokyo subway station. :) (Though some of the stations are a LOT of fun to get lost in!)
The first time I traveled abroad (years before smartphones became commonplace), my boss insisted I pay attention to every conversation, even when I didn't speak the language. It turns out, in a lot of languages, there are a lot of unexpected cognates. And you can pick up quite a few words in very little time just by listening.
You say your phone helped you carry on a conversation in a language you didn't speak, but have you tried it without the phone? It works better than you probably think. Imagine you saw your favorite movie for the first time in a foreign language. Don't you think you could figure out most of it from visuals, emotions, and context? In my experience, you can understand about 80% of a movie without speaking a word of the language. 5 year olds don't know that many words, anyway!
Also: menus? If I'm traveling somewhere where I can't read the menu, I probably don't know what any of the food is, either, so I'll eat anything. Trying new and unknown native customs is the whole point of traveling.
This all sounds to me like people who say "I need GPS or I'll never find anything!" Actually, my friends who don't use GPS got lost the first few times, but now know the city better than anyone. My friends who use GPS every time, OTOH, still don't know where anything is.