Best way to talk to someone with whom you have no common language?

[MonkeySage]

Google translate feels kind of insulting, on top of giving very bad translations. Last night, found I had the need to use what tiny bit of Spanish I knew since my conversational partner online knew about as much english. But I felt pretty bad about it, tone is hard to carry via text. Especially so if you don't really know the language you are trying to use. On the one hand, I did not want to come off as the typical "Speak English!" jerk you sometimes see on the internet. On the other, neither of us were really getting anywhere, and I think both of us just left even more confused... Both of us were having problems with Steam, and figured we might be having the exact same problem.

I don't know very many people online who are fluent in Spanish; my boyfriend at most speaks a little bit of German, thanks to having taken a few classes.

[BWR]

Google translate feels kind of insulting, on top of giving very bad translations. Last night, found I had the need to use what tiny bit of Spanish I knew since my conversational partner online knew about as much english. But I felt pretty bad about it, tone is hard to carry via text. Especially so if you don't really know the language you are trying to use. On the one hand, I did not want to come off as the typical "Speak English!" jerk you sometimes see on the internet. On the other, neither of us were really getting anywhere, and I think both of us just left even more confused... Both of us were having problems with Steam, and figured we might be having the exact same problem.

I don't know very many people online who are fluent in Spanish; my boyfriend at most speaks a little bit of German, thanks to having taken a few classes.

The easy solution: get an interpreter
the difficult solution: learn the other language

[Grinner]

Employ emoticons excessively? Link pictures?

[Scarlet Knight]

Put "o" at the end of all your words?

[Peelee]

If it's text-based? Suck it up and use Google translate. Broken Spanish/english is more understandable than no spanish/English

[TechnOkami]

If you're trying to communicate irl: an English to [insert language of choice] Dictionary, then proceed to pass the book around until info is shared.

[Lacco]

I would post both the original text in English and translation in Spanish - so that the person can try also to interpret the translation.

And try to find out if you have a friend who speaks Spanish to check what you wrote.

[Final Hyena]

With the language of love!

[Flickerdart]

I would post both the original text in English and translation in Spanish - so that the person can try also to interpret the translation.

And try to find out if you have a friend who speaks Spanish to check what you wrote.

Excellent ideas, seconding both of them. Especially because Google Translate is not the only translation service. For example, for English > Russian, Yandex is a much better service. There could be a similar Spanish analog.

Have you considered pictures or emoji? Are they appropriate for the conversation? We don't know too much about your context.

[TheThan]

I would recommend sign language But then there’s some translation problems (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYNpGNi7P7Y) (warning language).

[Crow]

Just speak really loud and slow. Try to sprinkle in an out-of-context spanglish word here and there.

[Frontier]

Didn't Microsoft come out with Skype instant translator or something? It may only be available for businesses but it does real time translation.

[nyjastul69]

I wouldn't try and talk with someone that I don't have a language in common with. As others have suggested, I would try to use a form of communication that is not reliant upon speech.

[Eldariel]

It's going to be difficult either way. If you can't find a language both of you have at least an adequate control in, you can try Google Translate but it'll be very imprecise. Google Translate is honestly the best free service on this front right now, but that's far from reliable. Things like Bing are even worse. My recommendation: stick to simple sentence structures that Google has less trouble with, try and comprehend the recipient's language at least to the point that you can tell if it's using the right adpositions and conjunctions, and if possible, google the sentence or the words that look weird (Spanish and English share a lot of vocabulary thanks to Latin and the great amounts of language contact between English and French - you can begin figuring out certain suffixes and roots through English). And yeah, using emoticons is a reasonable way to try and make up for lacking body language.

Honestly, for prolonged communication, as stated by others, I'd continue learning the language (there are plenty of free courses online; I'd point you towards Duolingo (https://www.duolingo.com/) and Memrise (https://www.memrise.com/) as relatively useful platforms for certain types of practice). You say you already know a bit of Spanish so that bit will make going the rest of the way a lot easier, and I wager it might be an interesting experience. Languages are always useful (beyond the obvious communicative benefits too) and your world will be richer for knowing another one anyways. A multilingual brain is more elastic than their monolingual counterparts so learning additional languages makes learning...well, anything else easier too. And you'll gain an access to a wealth of culture, history, art and knowledge in the process.

[Roxxy]

This probably won't work online, but my experience as a cashier/alcohol saleswoman in a really touristy area has been that physical gesturing works wonders. Where I work, we have to ID for all alcohol transactions regardless of the age of the customer, and older European tourists don't expect to ever get carded, so if they have little English it can be difficult to get across that I need ID. I've found that pulling out my ID is pretty effective at demonstrating that I need to see their ID in those situations. Similarly, lifting bags is effective at seeing if people want their purchases bagged (You have to pay for bags in most of the Bay Area, so we always ask before bagging), gesturing at numbers is effective at getting totals across, and so on. As someone who deals with people who don't speak English multiple times per shift, I find it just part of the job, and rarely a frustrating one.

[Spiryt]

http://c.wrzuta.pl/wi5153/2cd6ec430010a909473c7aa4


Despite language barrier, most people will understand above image, it works.:smallwink:

[goto124]

I don't get it - buy a baseball bat for $99 each? Club people over the head with it? Which somehow helps with translation?

I just remembered a gem from elsewhere on these forums:

Why does CoC have a combat system at all?

So you can try your luck against some of the smaller monsters? They understand the universal language just fine.

[Peelee]

I don't get it - buy a baseball bat for $99 each? Club people over the head with it? Which somehow helps with translation?

I just remembered a gem from elsewhere on these forums:

It's clearly "four for 99 units of currency." And Adidas brand bats, too. What a deal!

[Bonecrusher Doc]

I was going to say, "Play soccer with them.". Everybody knows soccer.

[Banjoman42]

Depending on your knowledge of Spanish, SpanishDict might be a good site to use for translations. It gives you three translations from different sources, and then you can usually piece together the correct translation by looking at the word for word translation of each.