I remember reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and wishing there was an actual Babel fish, a small yellow fish you could put in your ear and instantly translate any language so you heard it in your own. Google Translate is getting pretty close. All you need is a set of headphones and you’ll hear the person speaking to you in another language instantly being translated. It attempts to maintain the speaker’s tone and emphasis, and tries to understand context and even things like idioms, which rarely translate well.

I joke that English is both my first and second language because I struggled so much to be understood when I moved from Barbados to Canada that it felt like I had to relearn to speak English. That said, when I was younger I really wanted to learn another language. Specifically, I wanted to know another language well enough to dream in that language. Now I realize that I’m never going to put the effort in to do this. But at least going forward I can travel abroad with a bit more confidence. Actually it’s not confidence I lacked, it’s comfort. It’s embarrassment that I have gone to another country and have made no effort to understand the people that live there, relying on their knowledge of English.

Of course this won’t help me be understood as much as me understanding others, but I can imagine a time in the not so distant future when this tool will be ubiquitous, and so any time there is a language barrier, both people or groups of people will all be using a translation tool like this.

It’s not perfect, instantaneous translation like the Hitchhiker’s Babel fish, but it’s still a pretty awesome tool that I know is going to come in handy for me.