A friend has said that he is going to buy them. I don’t know if he has or not. I’ll check.

Some friends and I were having a conversation about these the other day.

-how are you going to know if the translation is accurate?

-how are you going to respond to the other person?

-Can you wear one and the other person wear one (don’t get into the hygiene of this scenario) and have the AirPods translate for each of you?

ETA: My friend just picked them up today. He has not unboxed them yet and will probably wait until the weekend. He is a conversational French speaker, so he ought to be able to verify the accuracy.

I found this on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1ni5fwp/i_tested_live_translation_from_english_to/

How do you respond in the other person's language? I need to read up on these. I use google translate, using the microphone, at my job and it works really well.

Thank you, this was very helpful, Bbstx. I would love to hear what your friend thinks when he gives it a try.

As noted in the reddit article, I don' think the technology supports full conversations. It would be good for short translations, directions, emergencies, etc.

Given she is going to the winter Olympics, I imagine there will be plenty of English speaking support. I don't imagine it is a necessity but it will give her some comfort.

Interesting! I can work out reading in some languages, and speak in some, but listening to people is hard! They speak too fast. or use colloquialisms, or there is other noise, etc, so if it works I would find it helpful.