A love story; mediated through translation
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This is a story about the love between a man and a woman who don't know each other's language and haven't learned it either. The man is an American from New Haven, and the woman is a Chinese from Xi'an, China. He speaks English and she speaks Mandarin. They converse through Microsoft Translator.
They met in Xi'an in 2019 when the man went to see the sights (Terracotta warriors, Buddhist temples, and so on). After he came back to America, they continued to communicate through messaging. But then Covid struck and they were cut off from each other. After Covid restrictions were relaxed, she decided to come to America in 2022 on a one-way ticket and stayed here.
The man and the woman have been married for three years and rely on an arsenal of eight external battery packs to keep the energy flowing.
For the technical details, see this long article:
They Are in Love but Don’t Speak the Same Language
He speaks English. She speaks Mandarin. The secret to their happy marriage: Microsoft Translator.
By Kashmir Hill, NYT (2/14/26)
They've known each other for well on seven years. I can't help but think this is a bizarre situation that is unlikely to last in perpetuity. What happens when you're cooperating on a complicated dish in the kitchen, or doing a chore together in the back yard and you left the translator in the house, or you're driving down the road and have to discuss directions. All the more in those romantic, touching, intimate moments when you don't have time to reach for your translator?
One of my high school buddies served in Korea. When he returned to the States, he brought back his new wife. He did not speak any Korean and she did not speak any English. They came to visit my family in Ohio. I remember my Mom trying to help the wife on with her coat in preparation for saying goodbye. It was very awkward.
Selected readings
- "Why electronic machine translation services sometimes seem to fail" (1/29/17)
- "Keep on -inging" (10/30/17)
- "Are you in the book today?" (3/19/20)
- "Speech-to-speech translation" (11/10/12)
[Thanks to François Lang]
François Lang said,
February 17, 2026 @ 3:20 pm
I wish them the best of luck. Omnia vincit amor and all that, but still…
JMGN said,
February 17, 2026 @ 5:49 pm
Regarding the term "mediation" in language learning:
CEFR's Actfour ‘modes of communication’: reception, production, interaction, and mediation. Reception and production focus on personal expression, interaction introduces the co-construction of meaning, and mediation deals with the facilitation of understanding. Each in turn can appear in different ‘semiotic modes’ such as oral, written, or audiovisual.
CEFR's ‘strategic dimension’ consists of ‘learning strategies’ (savoir apprendre) and ‘communication strategies’, but only descriptors for some of the latter are provided. Therefore, literature needs be drawn from elsewhere to fill the gaps .
See further about the Action-oriented approach: https://zaguan.unizar.es/record/152447
Barbara Phillips Long said,
February 17, 2026 @ 7:28 pm
Based on what the NYT story tells us, this couple spends a lot more time physically touching each other — in order to share the phone — than many other couples do. That may well help them sustain their relationship. They are also trying to learn each other’s languages, even though the learning is challenging for them. My preference for happily-ever-afters makes me want to believe that they will keep working through their issues. It sounds like they may well develop or have already developed a lot of nonverbal cues.
Increasingly, perhaps influenced by well over a decade of widowhood, my perspective is to avoid measuring other relationships by the norms I set for myself for many years. Happy couples exist despite many different family configurations and lifestyles, such as coping with cultural differences, or a deaf partner, or living together apart, or disabilities, or even dementia. There are also lots of ways couples fail to communicate. One nasty tactic the couple in the Times story doesn’t use? The silent treatment.
JPL said,
February 17, 2026 @ 8:31 pm
I agree with Barbara: I'm sure this marriage will stand the test of time. One other pitfall they can avoid: saying mean things to one another that they later regret. (They should both try to avoid learning the mean things in the respective languages.)
VVOV said,
February 17, 2026 @ 8:49 pm
I know a couple whose relationship started similarly (no common language, met via a dating app using machine translation and then continued to communicate after meeting in-person via machine translation on their phones). They are still together 6 years later, but have been more successful at learning each other‘s languages than the couple in the article and I believe stopped using machine translation after about one year.
Peter Cyrus said,
February 18, 2026 @ 3:33 am
My dad was a physician, and was treating an elderly Chinese patient for pneumonia. But he couldn't ask the man how his lungs felt, because he spoke no English. One day the man's wife showed up, and spoke English, so my dad asked her to ask her husband how his lungs felt. She asked him … in English! It turned out they'd been married over 50 years with no common language! My recently-divorced dad commented that that must be the secret.
Victor Mair said,
February 18, 2026 @ 5:17 am
What unusual, and enlightening, aspects of human relationships this post is eliciting!