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It was after a hectic taxi ride in India that Sam Wald realized there was a market for interpreters for people on the go. Although Wald speaks Hindi - plus a smattering of Hebrew, Latin, Spanish and French - he found himself unable to discuss the cost of the taxi ride at the end.
"[The driver] quoted me a price that was exorbitant and decided he didn't understand what I was saying any more," said Wald, a co-founder of Fone-In, a new interpreter service for travellers who find themselves in a sticky situation with a foreign language.
U.S.-based Fone-In has about a thousand interpreters around the world and hopes to cover more than 80 languages by the end of the year. Wald says his company will "continue adding languages until we see no more," adding it offers translators speaking everything from Duala to Amharic.
The company already has a competitor for the lucrative Chinese market in chinaONEcall, a London-based operator with 15 Mandarin and English speakers in its call centre.
Both companies work on a surprisingly simple model: Customers call the company and a native speaker of both the foreign language and English will translate in a three-way conversation. ChinaONEcall charges a $60 membership fee plus 70 cents a minute - about the same as many long-distance plans. Fone-In says it is still working out its prices. The services are available around the clock.
With both business and leisure travel on the rise, it was only a matter of time before someone found a way to capitalize on the ubiquity of cellphone technology to replace slow and awkward phrase books. "Corporations send people all over the place, to places that are not used to speaking English. This is language insurance, [and] the fact is that you will need our service if you go off the beaten path and are willing to venture outside your hotel," said Wald, who founded the service with Dr. Israel Stein, a fellow experienced traveller.
ChinaONEcall founder Michael Sinclair decided to focus on the Chinese market after travelling in the country. His son, Greg, visited during his gap year - the year between high school and university in Britain - to teach English. He fell in love with the country and decided to make China his permanent home. Sinclair and other relatives venture there frequently now, but have found it difficult to get around if Greg is busy with work and can't interpret for them.
"We saw there was a frequent need to pick up the phone and make a call to Greg," Sinclair said. "So we saw this opportunity."
Both chinaONEcall and Fone-In began operations this spring, and each said business is increasing steadily. Sinclair said he plans to promote his service heavily ahead of the Olympics in Beijing next year.
He said that having an interpreter can come in handy in countless situations. For instance, his daughter has a peanut allergy, so it can be difficult to walk into a restaurant in China and be confident that the dishes on the menu are safe. With the service, though, he can have a translator ask the waiter which items are nut-free.
He recently travelled to a remote area of China, staying in the mountains with local villagers and sleeping on mattresses in one-room homes.
"They had a tradition that the oldest person would eat first. There were two of us, and [with a translator] we worked out that I was by a few days," he said.
It's convenient, he says, and doesn't necessarily curb the spontaneity or sense of adventure in areas where English is not widely spoken. Instead, it could actually open up travel to remote areas for many people.
Stein of Fone-In agrees. He says he's had his share of odd experiences in countries where he didn't speak the language.
"I remember one evening in a restaurant in Astrakhan, Russia. We tried to explain that we wanted some meat and we started mooing inside the restaurant to try to get our point across," he says, chuckling. "It was a little embarrassing."
But even though the story makes for good cocktail conversation, at the time it can be frustrating. "Realistically, yes, there's a certain amount of excitement and adventure, but if you're on short time frames, anything that retards the effort makes it so much more difficult, particularly when you're embedded in a culture where most people don't speak English," he says.
Of course, if a disembodied voice on the other end of the line doesn't sound reassuring enough, you can always take a translator with you.
San Francisco-based VIAmigo.com makes it easy to locate guides and interpreters around the world. The newly launched website has already signed up more than 1,500 people offering their services to both business and leisure travellers.
Founder Jeffrey Goldsmith says access to the site is free for both translators and customers for now - "let's see if I can make enough money through advertising" - and fees are negotiated through the site.
"We have one guy in Kyoto who charges 2,500 yen an hour - that's about $25, maybe a little more. And prices vary from country to country. I've seen some postings that are absolutely free. And I've seen expensive ones. I think there are a pair of designers in Paris who will take you to fashion design studios for, I think it was 1,000 euros a day. It runs the gamut, and our mission is to connect these people."
Goldsmith says the site has no formal screening process for translators other than the references they're required to post. But he says allowing customers to correspond with prospective interpreters is the best way to find a good match.
"What better way to find someone to interpret for you than to come to a site, talk to several people, see who you get on with best, see who knows the subject matter you're talking about? Each industry has its own idioms, so find someone who really knows what you're talking about. Then hire them, rather than hire someone through a service who may not be a good fit.
"Meeting people online, especially when there's a network, is a fantastic way to find talent - like an interpreter, a scuba diving guide, a safari guide."
Like Stein and Sinclair, he says having an interpreter can only improve the travel experience.
"[In my 20s], I had the time to seek out cool experiences that were just my own. But I think that if you're going someplace for two or a few days, you don't have time to do that.
"Most people would never in their life pay for a package tour, but they would do this."
Interpreter services
chinaONEcall http://www.chinaonecall.co.uk; provides translation in English and Mandarin over the phone for about 70 cents a minute; top up a card online and credit is removed with each call.
Fone-In 1-877-988-3556; currently offers more than 50 languages; prices are still to be determined.
VIAmigo.com Website allows customers to locate and negotiate fees with more than 1,500 interpreters and guides around the world.
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