Translators

Does anyone have a suggestion for a good translator?

I will be in India for a month staying with my in laws. While my husband can translate for me sometimes he is not always around. I was thinking about using google translate but this relies on the internet.

My in laws speak Tamil, Kannada, and a little Hindi. My husband's Dad also speaks English but he can not understand my New York accent. I only know English and I've been trying to learn Hindi by using Rosetta Stone but by pronunciation is very bad I guess. No one can understand me.

The first time I met them it was very hard to communicate without a translator. I thought it would be ok but it kinda gets old after a month of not being able to communicate with anyone. Does anyone have any experience with a situation like this? What did you do?

Thank you for the help.

My wife is my translator.

If you are trying to learn Hindi, it is good if you start practicing using it with your Husband or any one else around. Also watching TV/hearing radio programmes may be a good way to get used to it.

If Tamil is their Mother Tongue, it would be really appreciated if you learn some common terms in it, if not the whole language. Again your husband is the one you should be practicing on and the one who is teaching you.

Yes I've tried practicing with my husband normally this just ends with him laughing at my apparently horrible pronunciation when I think it sounds the same.

I can understand some Tamil but can't speak it. I thought I would have got better the last time I was in India but they switch with such ease between so many languages all the time. This is very amazing how easily they switch from language to language. They appear to have no trouble switching. Very impressive.

The last time I could tell what language they where speaking. Which I thought was a step.

I'm going to continue to try to learn Hindi and some Tamil.

Mod Note
I have moved your thread, taffners, to a more suitable forum.

There are lots of books and guides are available for translation you can find out this in internet. You can also take the help of google tranlator.

I have been learning Tamil...which is a difficult language but I am able to get by in TN. I know people who speak most of the major Indian languages and have phoned them up from time to time to ask them to speak to someone I am having difficulty in communicating with. An example would be staying in Mumbai when I was by myself in the apartment. I answered the door to a man who was insisting I sign what I think was an income tax form. I said I didn't live there (in English) and couldn't sign. He, curiously, spoke no English at all and I phoned up a Hindi/Marathi speaking colleague who sorted it out.

In India only a small minority speaks English so there was nothing "curious" about your experience.

Very simple ask your in laws for Tamil tutor who can teach you Tamil from english. Lots of people should be available who can do that on nominal fees, who like to brush up their english skills. Your tutor can also work as translator between you and your in laws. Just go with hourly payment and you can figure out how many hours you need service.