Opinion post by

Adam Birney

As the cold winter began to grip Canada this year, my partner and I decided to escape the snowy weather and flee to her homeland in Mexico for a few weeks. I have been learning Spanish through Memrise for the past few months, which has taught me the basics of greeting others and ordering another beer, but I am far from fluent. Thankfully, my fluency in French is helping me pick things up quicker due to the languages’ similarities, but I usually rely on my partner, who is a native speaker, to help translate the rest. For this trip, though, I wanted to give her a break and be more self-reliant. So I downloaded the Google Translate app as my main companion and aid in navigating the local language for this journey.

See also: 10 best Spanish to English dictionaries and phrasebooks for Android