phone help

Question

My friend and I text, and she's Spanish as I am not. I would love to know if I may type in English and it will translate into Spanish

Please fill out your profile so that we may better help you , welcome to the forum , good luck. - ray76, Jun 20, 2014

Into what are you typing ? I do not understand your question , of course if you type into any translator it will translate for you , how well is another matter - ray76, Jun 20, 2014

Answer 1

Hello Mygoal

Welcome to the SpanishDict forum!

Yes, you could theoretically type words / phrases into a translation machine and it would give you a kind of translation, but there is a big (and I mean big!) inherent risk with using any kind of translation machine/ tool: you risk saying something that could easily be misunderstood by the other person/s with whom you are speaking and/or worse still, could cause offense!

I wouldn't use one myself, even to chat with someone in a new language that I was learning!!!

The funny (strange) thing about using language translators is that: the less well you know a language the worse position you are to judge whether the machine has made a mistake but the more likely you are to depend on one!......

On the other hand, the more proficient you are in speaking a second / foreign language, the better placed you are to judge just how unreliable and inaccuarte they are/can be!

In addition, knowing this, you would probably be much less inclined to use one! These machines are no substitute for learning a language the hard way!

Use it at your own risk but remember that they can't normally translate idioms and colloquial expressions so anything your friend/girlfriend says (writes) that you enter into the machine could give you a misguided idea of her thoughts, ideas or feelings for you unless you both use emoticons (smiley faces) or you chat on Skype video where you can see each other;s body language!

P.S.They will not work very quickly for face to face, conversations in real time (live conversations) and they depend on your accuracy for typing in the words correctly otherwise it will make no sense or it could mean someting different ,so I hope your friend is patient and very understanding!

I'm not saying you can't /shouldn't ever use one ...but please be aware of the risks of the potential for misunderstanding when you do

I hope this helps !

Excellent answer. - gringojrf, Jun 20, 2014

Thanks, Gringo :) - FELIZ77, Jun 20, 2014

I agree, good answer Feliz :) - Kiwi-Girl, Jun 21, 2014

Thank You, Kiwi :) - FELIZ77, Jun 22, 2014