As I ship abroad and get numerous foreign buyers for my eBay listings (hint for wannabe sellers - this creates a much greater sale value than UK only listings do) I try to make them feel at home as best as I can, including pre-translating things in replys, and saying thanks in feedback in someone’s own language. Grazie. Muchas Gracias. Danke. Takk. Köszönöm. Большое спасибо. Every little helps No. 1 tool for this is online translaters, and BabelFish and this handy “Thank You in many languages” page are all much frequented by myself, although Google’s new - or probably old as it’s seemingly passed me by for a while - Translate tool may start becoming a favourite.

After a year, I’m becoming quite good at it. Here’s a small snippet of something I sent to an Italian a few days back, in reply to whether a game incuded English or not:

     Ciao, soltanto l’inglese è incluso. Grazie, Christopher / inaudible-games.

Which resulted in this:      grazie. PS: ottimo italiano!

I win! (That’s “optimal italian”, or, “your translation rockzorz!”). Unfortunately that resulted in another quickly translated reply:

     Tristemente, no. Babelfish.yahoo.com. ;o) Grazie comunque. :o) Christopher.

I cannot lie to them. Shame, really. Anyway, while I may be a dab hand at the babelfishing, sadly the same can’t be said for all, as this thank-you note to myself shows.

     Your interest, your candor and thank you very much for your fast service, ample earnings.

Well, at least I’m fast. Dunno about candor though, I’ve never felt very candorious. Maybe that’s another thing I should try…