When a websites usefulness shines through.

Archeron

An event over the past two days just got me thinking about how bloody useful some sites can be when you're in a pickle and need help.

A family member of mine has become ill and is in hospital in Portugal. As it is a completely non English speaking hospital in a rural area (and I dont speak Portugese or Spanish), while trying to find out information, there were a lot of phone calls where both the person in Portugal and myself sat there going "um, eh, no, um, wait, no, errr" before one of us just hung up. Didnt know what to do and started to panic, and then I remembered this site:

www.worldlingo.com

I originally used this site as I thought it was funny to send people chinese translations of "your mother is a polar bear" and other such mundane crap.

Okay, it doesnt translate to Portugese, but it does do Spanish, so I translated my little list of questions into Spanish, hoping there was a better chance of them understanding me, and helping me out.

My first sentence in badly spoken Spanish was
"I do not speak Portugese or Spanish and I am using an internet translator. I can say certain phrases to you, but I do not understand what you are saying"
To which the girl replied, "si"
Wow! I then mumbled my badly spoken Spanish questions at her and she understood and pointed me in the perfect direction to find out what I needed to know by giving me the number of a local emergency tourist medical centre who could sort everything.

Whoever said the internet was just about porn was only 99.999% correct.
You ever come across a site that became incredibly useful because of difficult circumstances?

Hellm0

In any situation other than when i have a serious need for porn I've found the internet of no use whatsoever.
(With the exceptions of bookings flights, buying books, selling stuff from when I played uo, looking up directions on google maps and many many other exceptions)

shoutman

I find that whenever I have a question that needs answering boards is the answer. There is an almost infinite amount of information held in the heads of people who use this site and most of the time they are willing to depart with said information.

Boards FTW

Vinnie69

shoutman wrote:

I find that whenever I have a question that needs answering boards is the answer. There is an almost infinite amount of information held in the heads of people who use this site and most of the time they are willing to depart with said information.

Boards FTW

good grief!

Dun laoire

The internet has been amazing for me. I bought some oldskool dance records on ebay which are almost impossible to buy in any record store and also managed to download some amazing oldskool live mixes from all sorts of d.j's which are impossible to buy. I've also made a few quid over the last while after recieveing some cracking horse racing tips:D


ALL GOOD!!!

Black Swan

Be glad you do not live in the People's Republic of China. They greatly restrict access to the net. And in the US they spy on what you surf or email.

Terry

Blue_Lagoon wrote:

Be glad you do not live in the People's Republic of China. They greatly restrict access to the net. And in the US they spy on what you surf or email.

really?
ok, let's see what happens next.
Islam, Terror, Terrorist, Terrorism, Koran, Qu'Ran, Jihad, Plane, Airplane, Aeroplane, Jet, Bomb, Hi-jack, America.

there's a few of the keywords they use. let us know if you are arrested.

Ruu_Old

Blue_Lagoon wrote:

Be glad you do not live in the People's Republic of China. They greatly restrict access to the net. And in the US they spy on what you surf or email.

They do? Ohhhh ballox!

Lust4Life

Originally posted by Archeron
I originally used this site as I thought it was funny to send people chinese translations of "your mother is a polar bear" and other such mundane crap.

My hubby would like meeting you!
His favourite question when meeting anyone who speaks a foreign language is how do you say:

"I'm sorry, we are all out of Badgers. Would you accept a wolverine in its stead?"

Met a Turkish Translator once who said they just don't have badgers!:p

Hellm0

Do they have beavers?

Esel

Badgers? We don't need no steenking badgers!