What seemed trying to push our luck a bit too far not long ago, became a new challenge this early year, when we received a very interesting home exchange offer from Spain. It was composed in Spanish. My husband’s Spanish language skills would have been very usefully now, but as he was unavailable due to a very heavy workload, I could not resort to his wonderful language abilities. My Spanish is literally “nada”, but since I am the one doing our personal home exchange corresponding normally anyway, I decided to try something new.

Google translation of the home exchange invitation. The result was not too good. The translation tool hadn’t recognized some of the words. These words were placed in Spanish within the English translation. The syntax was baffling. However, I was able to understand the overall message. I liked the message and it felt good, but I needed some more reassurance whether I could trust my own judgment under the circumstances.

I sent the email to a friend – a native of Argentina. On the phone, he translated the message word for word for me. His first comment was: “This is a very polite, kind letter”. He only confirmed what had showed through the imperfect Google translation already.

After consulting with my family, I replied favorably to the home exchange offer. I wrote my message in English and added the Spanish Google translation for easier reading. And that is how I kept up my correspondence with the Spanish home exchangers.

A last language hurdle before the home exchange arrival, next…