I found an amazing designer recently but sometimes we will spend twice the time needed for something only because he speaks broken English and I speak zero *something* (honestly not sure of his first lang.)

Any tips would be appreciated here, is it possible to use a decent translator for long emails back and forth?

I have had this same issue on more than one occasion. I would love to find a translator that would work for multiple languages. I've resorted to using Babelfish often enough.

know the feeling of not knowing the person's first language too. There are so many languages that sound the same these days or look the same, that it is hard to tell which is which.

I know once you find a designer you like you will do ANYTHING to work with them. I think for your own sanity and less headache find a new designer. Best of luck to you!

Did you find the translations from Babel Fish to be pretty easy to understand and accurate? I know a lot of times languages don't translate word for word and someone who knows both languages can kind of fill in the gaps.

I think its easier to find another designer.

I've had limited success with translators because of the grammatical problems and the fact that the syntax is often so different. I think however keeping things simple-short sentences and paragraphs so that there is less scope for errors-that is all that you can really do. Simple phrases will translate easier.

Good advice AbbieRose. I use a translator everyday, but it's pretty obvious when the translation doesn't convert correctly. I use it mainly to get the general idea and work through it.

You should hire a translator, in my case I write and read English and Spanish so is a plus for the companies I work with.

Even though that our website is in English, we have several Spanish costumers

Search on google for a free translator.

Online translators tend to fail. I would recommend either hiring a translator or finding another designer. A good first step might be finding out what his original language is. If it's an easy language to get a translator for, that might work.

Have you ever thought about writing diagrams or pictures to get your point across?

Just because vocally there is a barrier, that does not mean there is another way of communicating.

I would just scan hand drawn diagrams or make them in Paint or some other sort of program like that. I would not let something as small as that get in the way of good work.

Just my opinion.

Actually I have done that with an ex of mine before and he spoke English. Needless to say the relationship did not last long and since I had made this thread its been a while since that designer and I have spoke (for different reasons, he had some personal things going on).

I have also tried online translators and I remember from the few years I took Spanish (and well forgotten it now) how bad they were.

On demand translators online - sounds interesting.

It probably would be expensive to hire a professional translator though and although the issue seems to be "resolved", I'll disagree with those that said that the language barrier was too much of a hassle to deal with. I can understand giving up when the person speaks no English at all as obviously that will take a great load of work on both sides but when they speak a little English, the message can still be sent across with reasonable effort. I liked the diagram idea someone mentioned although hand gestures work well too but since it's an online communication, a diagram will probably work better.

Translation over the net isn't really that accurate though.