Translation apps like Google Translate or Microsoft Translator are familiar to world travelers. It wasn't perfect, and he had to repeat himself a few times, but what flowed out was a proper conversation-one that wouldn't have been so easily possible a decade ago. That's when I whipped out Google Translate, and his eyes lit up as my phone conveyed his questions better than I ever could. Cue a kludgy back and forth, with both of us having a hard time really understanding one another. But his phrasing was awkward because English wasn't his native tongue.
When I hopped into a cab in Barcelona last year, my taxi driver began asking me questions-you know, small talk.
