#language-barriers

#language-barriers

The Instagram stories of Americans fleeing to Europe never show the returns - 40% are back in America within two years, broke, defeated, and pretending their "European adventure" was always meant to be temporary. They arrived with dreams of café life and affordable healthcare, then discovered European salaries, apartment hunting, and the reality that "everyone speaks English" is marketing fiction. My American expat group in Barcelona started with 47 members in 2022; 19 remain, and 3 more have flights booked home for January.

"But you can hire an interpreter," Pathomrit told them. "She is ready. Do you know how hard it is to get someone who's ready to quit?" Despite Southern California having the world's largest Thai population outside Thailand, Thai Angelenos face stigma, language barriers and limited resources when accessing mental healthcare. Thai Town's temples and resource centers aim to support the community, but few Thai-speaking mental healthcare workers lead to long waits for substance abuse treatment centers, housing support and social work resources.

Working as a digital nomad sounds like a sweet deal. You mostly get to set your own hours (depends on the kind of remote work, really), which typically lets you work from anywhere in the world. Want to see the sunny beaches of Southern California or explore New England during the fall? You're your own boss, so go right ahead. As long as you have one of the many essential accessories for digital nomads and a stable internet connection, that is.

All of them are Indigenous Q'eqchi' Maya women from the municipality of Coban located in Alta Verapaz, Northern Guatemala and they work on a banana plantation in the Mexican state of Chiapas. All of them found jobs there after hearing an announcement: Get on the truck, you're going to work in Mexico! They weren't forced to come, but they were completely disoriented upon moving countries. In May of 2025, almost a month after their arrival, none of them were exactly sure of where they were.

Artificial intelligence is spreading faster than any technology in history - but billions of people are being left behind. That's the conclusion of Microsoft's new "AI Diffusion Report," which maps how AI use, infrastructure, and innovation are spreading globally. The company said that more than 1.2 billion people now use AI tools, a rate of adoption that it said has outpaced electricity, computers, and the internet. Yet this rapid diffusion is uneven.

While it is correct that everyone will feel the effects of climate change, the extent to which it impacts people differs-people's access to information and knowledge, for example, is one of the most important differentiating factors. During the wildfires in Los Angeles earlier this year, a UCLA study showed that affected communities with limited English proficiency suffered specific challenges as a result of not being able to understand alerts and information shared.

I lived among North American mosquitoes for the first 35 years of my life, which would sometimes cause bites about the size of the pad of my pinkie finger. They might've stuck around for a week or so, but they were manageable. All I had to do was try not to scratch, slap some calamine lotion on if it got really uncomfortable, and carry on with my life.

HUD's English-only policy strips away translated housing materials and guidance, negatively impacting millions of non-English-speaking citizens who rely on these resources for basic housing needs.

When I moved from the US to Spain to build a new life, I hoped to find someone to share it with. I mostly dated men who spoke both English and Spanish, but never felt a true connection - until one night at a Latin dance event when I was paired with my now-boyfriend.

DeepL Voice has been expanded to include Mandarin, Ukrainian, and Romanian, enhancing the translation capabilities crucial for virtual meetings and personal conversations.

Amano states that his journey began with a focus on conserving farmland biodiversity in Japan, linking his academic growth to addressing real-world conservation issues.