4.8 • 861 Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Newly designed earbuds promise real-time translations right to your ear. But is something lost when we don’t engage with other languages? Ross Benjamin is an award-winning translator of German-language literature. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss what we miss when we don’t squirm a little in a foreign country and why being less than fluent affects how we pay attention and learn. Plus, we’ll talk about all the beauty we’ll gloss over when A.I. handles the hard parts. His article “The Costs of Instant Translation” was published in The Atlantic.
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| 0:00.0 | Have you heard about OMG? Yes. This is a website the New York Times wirecutter featured as one of their most popular gifts. And for good reason, it presents new findings from the largest ever research study into women's pleasure and intimacy. In partnership with researchers at Yale and at Indiana University, they asked tens of thousands of women what they |
| 0:21.6 | wished they and their partners had discovered sooner. They found the patterns in those |
| 0:26.2 | discoveries and all that wisdom and intimacy is organized as hundreds of short videos, |
| 0:31.6 | animations, and how-toes. When you see OMG, yes, you might understand why wirecutter recommended it. |
| 0:38.2 | It is warm, honest, and has regular women talking about real experiences. |
| 0:42.7 | It's truly eye-opening. |
| 0:44.8 | See for yourself at omgyes.com. |
| 0:47.3 | That's OMGS.com. As it is, speaking English might make you feel like a preferred customer when you travel. |
| 1:04.1 | Most international airports have some signs in English to help you navigate, and for |
| 1:08.4 | economic reasons, people in many parts of the world |
| 1:11.0 | learn it as a second language. |
| 1:13.3 | But now Apple is selling AirPods equipped to provide live translation, like we are all walking |
| 1:18.4 | around with a UN translator in our earbuds. |
| 1:22.2 | From KERA in Dallas, this is Think. |
| 1:24.7 | I'm Chris Boyd. |
| 1:26.2 | This technology promises to remove one of the biggest |
| 1:28.8 | hassles of traveling to foreign countries. But if it works like it's supposed to, my guest thinks |
| 1:34.5 | it might be terrible for us. Ross Benjamin is an award-winning translator of German language literature. |
| 1:40.5 | He wrote an essay for the Atlantic titled The Costs of Instant Translation. |
| 1:44.6 | Ross, welcome to think. |
| 1:46.6 | Thank you for having me. |
| 1:48.1 | Just generally speaking, how are these live translation earbuds supposed to work? |
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