Comment Re: For wealthy gadabouts perhaps (Score 2) 129
Translation: translate.google.com works as well as anything. The only real limitation is that technical jargon in German doesn't pass through to an equivalent US English expression. But that is the same thing that happens when German people speak English. They have very good grammar and accent in English, but they are not taught our technical words or colloquialisms. So technical documents have a lot of instances of "Module", "Technology", etc. referring to different things using the same words when there were more specific words that meant something in German.
Disclaimer: I'm a translator by trade.
That said, I think for basic, oral communication, a lot can already be done, but for anything beyond that, anything out there right now fails miserably.
It's not just about translating words. Consider, say, translating a legal document from any language to English. Which English, exactly? Not only are legal terms different depending on country, but so are legal concepts. Even within the same region, you'll find variation of speech that currently can't be handled at all with automatic translation. Ever read the transcript of a message left on Google Voice by a non-standard American English speaker? It's laughable. Translation knows nothing about these differences.
We're going to need humans specialised in specific concepts and regions for a long time.