Something that needs a better version of Google translate

I could see the very first night I had met the host family that there were going to be massive hurdles to overcome in learning the French language.  I greeted them as politely and properly as I knew how to in French (aka: "Bonjour"), and they greeted me back with a string of words that sounded like this to my ears: "Puweki sille ai u hogeons sow m'yden?" I immediately felt like a deer that had just been caught in the headlights: brain completely frozen and unable to process anything.  I tried to communicate my confusion: "Je....je ne......ahhhhh.... je ne sais pas!!!!!!!"  They tried to ask again: "Asayg fioreq titoe u'ka?"  Oh boy, I could tell we were not going to get anywhere fast.  As time wore on, however and I settled into my new home I devised a strategy for circumventing the language barrier:

• Step one: Always have my cellphone or tablet with me so I could look up any words that I didn't know on Google translate.  I'm a bonafide internet addict anyways, so the step proved to feel quite natural for me.
• Step two: Repeat back words I don't understand back to them to make sure I am hearing them right.  For example, today I got my host to repeat the word "Olive" to me four times (which in French incidentally happens to be "olive") because my brain couldn't make the correlation between olives and crackers.
• Step three: If all else fails, just smile and nod and say "oui" as though I totally understand what they are saying.  This last step has proven very successful when I'm at bus stops or in other public places.

Fortunately the language barrier hasn't prevented me from making new friends!

The second evening with the family I was ready to try again.  Armed with my cellphone I sat down opposite them at the dinner table for supper, and thus began the interrogation.  About an hour and a half later they had managed to find out that I had a family with both boys and girls in it and that I liked to travel across Canada every once in a while, and I was finally able to eat my neglected dinner that had surrendered its heat to the time it took for me to look up all the words we had used on the internet.  It was then that I realized that learning to be bilingual will require the sacrifice of a warm dinner every once in a while, all in the name of progress.

Unsatisfied with my continually low rate of comprehension however, as I near the one month mark, this past week I decided that in order to expand my vocabulary more swiftly I should buy a book in French and attempt to read it.  I went to a second-hand store and picked a chapter book out of the children's section that had a title I recognized "Le Livre de la Jungle" (The Jungle Book).  Perfect! I thought to myself.  A child's book should be easy to read and have simple vocabulary!  I went home and happily displayed my new purchase to my host.  "I am going to read this tonight, and I might get two or three pages done!" I proudly announced.  She smiled and laughed a little at my obvious enthusiasm.

Two hours later......  "J'ai terminé!" I announced to the household.  It had been long and arduous work and I had been tempted to give up more than once, but I finally had read two pages!  (Oh my word...as having typed that last sentence I feel shame for how far my lofty self has fallen!)  Of course, even having finished the two pages there were still things that didn't quite translate properly with Google translate so I called over to my hosts for help.  The lady took one look at the phrase I was having trouble with and her face immediately wrinkled in consternation.  She took the book over to her partner and they started to conference over the phrase, as though they didn't quite know themselves what it meant or how to explain it.  I overheard the word "difficile" in their conversation.  Finally, after a couple of minutes the lady comes back to tell me that she doesn't actually know how to the explain the sentence to me, because the language the book is using is actually quite archaic and isn't really commonly used anymore.

Great.  I go out and buy one book - a book for children - thinking that it is going to be filled with simple easily-translatable words about cute fluffy jungle animals, and instead I end up with the French equivalent of Shakespeare!  Go figure.