นั่นพูดว่าอะไรนะ? What does that say?

When I was nine years old, my dad and I moved to Los Angeles, and my mom moved to Tucson. So, even though I never really spoke Spanish, the sounds of the language were familiar and comforting.

When I left the U.S. and began traveling and living in Latin America, I struggled in my quest to communicate in Spanish. But at least I could read and sound things out, and there were familiar words to help me along the way.

Sri Lanka and Thailand have presented language barriers on a whole new level! Sinhala and Tamil are the official languages of Sri Lanka. In Weligama, where we stayed, everyone spoke Sinhala. It’s impossible for me to read because “ආයුබෝවන්. ඔබ හමුවීම පිළිබඳ සන්තෝෂයි” means “Hi. It’s nice to meet you!” There’s no sounding anything out, and even the Sri Lankans don’t always know how to translate their written words into English.

Vegetable Roti! Yum!

For example, we all loved vegetable roti—a flatbread wrapped around a beautifully spiced mashed potato and vegetable mixture. Roti is very popular, and alongside the vegetarian ones, you can find varieties with meat, fish, and even dessert fillings. But you’ll also notice quite the variety of spellings in restaurant and shop windows: roti, rotti, rotie, rottie… the list goes on. I’m not kidding!

Thailand is similar in that it uses an alphabet I can’t read. “Where is the bathroom?” looks like this: “ห้องน้ำอยู่ที่ไหน?” And no, I didn’t leave out the spaces between words—there are none in this sentence!

In Thailand, I started using Google Translate more for menus and food packaging when I discovered you could take pictures and it would do its best to translate what it saw. ChatGPT was helpful too, especially when I bought supplements—or that one time when Google suggested the frozen soup I purchased was, in fact, donkey soup! Thank you, ChatGPT, for reassuring me that the soup had shrimp and no donkey in the ingredient list. (By the way, it was spicy and delicious.)

Scroll through to see the various translation I got for different pictures of the same soup.

Menu items also had some pretty funny translations sometimes—but then I thought about some American dishes that might not translate well either. What would someone think of “pigs in a blanket” or “sex on the beach”?

This menu didn't have many pictures...enlarge to find some translation gems!

I feel incredibly lucky to have been born in an English-speaking country and to be living in this era. Many people in Thailand and Sri Lanka try their best to communicate in English, even though I’m in their countries. There’s often signage in English, even if it isn’t always very clear to me. I’m also extremely grateful for modern technology while traveling—it makes a huge difference.

I have so much respect for the backpackers who did all of this when I was in my 20s! I can only imagine how different their experiences were from mine. It must have been a blast. They were true badasses.

I’m kind of privileged—and full of gratitude—for this amazing life.