So recently I went camping with my sister and I had a Linguistic expirience.
We were in Yellowstone being excited about geothermal features and generally enjoying ourselves becuae turns out Late September is the best time to hit up the Colder national parks- the only other people there was a family with matching windbreakers speaking german with Swiss accents and the Park Ranger patrolling around to make sure we weren’t planning on skinny dipping or the other bonehaded things tourists do.
As we’re on the way back to the car we see a woman in Bright Red Pants in the parking lot looking both lost and near tears. She sees us and practically sprints over to ask us
Now, my sister is fluent in spanish, ok at pourtugese and italian and even has a good chunk of Japanese under her belt. “yo hablo español!” She offers. Then offers the other three languages. Madame Red pants shakes her head at all of them.
I have a dubious grasp of English, but I know enough German to navigate a major metropolitan area if everyone is real patient and repeats things three times for me. “Sprechen Sie Deustch?” I try.
Madame Red Pants (I can see her husband in the car looking equally bewildered. I cannot see the color of his pants. I assume they are equally Rhodacious.) looks crestfallen but tries anyway. She takes out the park map and indicates the Norris Junction, while speaking French faster than I understand English, but it’s apparent she doesn’t know where she is currently, and needs to get to Norris Junction.
We know where she is and how to get to Norris but can’t convey this via pointing at the map and waving our arms. I feel genuinely bad, and she looks near tears with frustration.
Then I remember.
The matching Swiss Family.
I jog back into the geyser complex and find them excitedly taking pictures of a chipmunk while the Ranger watches them suspiciously from behind a pine tree.
“Sprechen Sie Französisch?” I ask, and they collectively turn towards me, freeing the chipmunk from thier gaze as it sprints off into the underbrush.
“Ja, bitte.” Says thier Matriarch and leader.
“Eine Frau is Veeeeerlos- no, Verloren! Kann Sie- aw crap what’s the word? Translate?”
“Oh, Ja!” Frau Windbreaker speaks Idiot Tourist too, apparently. The Swiss collective follows me back to the parking lot and and Frau Windbreaker and Madame Red Pants have a very animated conversation in French that I understand exactly none of. My sister, feeling left out, offers various memebers of the Swiss Collective trail mix. some of them even take it. Frau Windbreaker turns to me.
“Wo ist Norris?” She asks, looking mildly embarassed.
I end up having to convey the directions to Norris in German, which Frau Windbreaker translates to French, hindered slightly by the fact that neither of these women know how to read a map, but eventually Madame Red Pants comprehends, thanks us profusely, gets in her car, and manages to turn the correct direction out of the parking lot. Frau Windbreaker and I shake hands and all of us part ways with the feeling of a job well done.
Before my sister and I can get in the car, the Ranger appraoches us.
“Thanks for that. I’ve felt bad all summer that all I’ve been able to do is turn on google translate for people.” he said, shyly.
At that moment my sister and I both realized that Madme Red Pants had both a GPS in her car and an Android phone in her hand.
Hopefully the next person to help her was more technologically literate or generally observant than we are.
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